


Battlefield

by shisabella



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:02:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 74,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27193502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shisabella/pseuds/shisabella
Summary: In an alternate universe where some things went differently, twenty-year-old former Kanto Champion Ash Ketchum is now a G-Man working to dismantle Team Rocket. Giovanni sends one of his agents to take care of the matter: reluctant Misty Waterflower, who works for him to fulfill her end of a deal.
Relationships: Kasumi | Misty/Satoshi | Ash Ketchum
Comments: 26
Kudos: 38





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> So... after dumping all my old stuff onto this account I'm actually posting something new. I haven't really written anything in two years. I'm trying to get back into it—and of course I jump straight into a very ambitious project because why not. Updates might be a bit slow, but I'm pretty determined to get somewhere with this!
> 
> As you might know, English is my second language, and I'm currently a little rusty, so I hope this isn't too bad.
> 
> The idea for this story came from a prompt generator, of all things.

_Viridian City, 3:35 am_

The black van parks two blocks from the mansion. With the headlights off it's barely a patch of darkness, nearly blending into the night. Out of the back come eight men in uniforms, black as well, save for the capital red R across their chests. They move quickly, with method, hardly making a sound.

The party can be heard from the street as they approach. First muffled music, then chatter and laughter, signaling a gathering of some of Kanto's highest society and most importantly: their pokémon. Fine specimens, meticulously bred for beauty and status. Luxury goods.

Near the building the group splits without need of a word, acting on an established plan. Four will take care of the surveillance. Shouldn't take long: no real threat is expected, as private events like this one have long been a regular occurrence without incidents, and the only two security guards are mostly there for show; and this late into the night they're sure to have relaxed enough that sneaking up on them should be child's play. Of the remaining four three will block the exits. The last one will cut the power, plunging the party guests into darkness.

The eighth grunt swiftly circles the mansion. One agile leap takes him over the adorned fence. A glance is enough to locate the power box: for weeks they've studied the building's blueprints, leaving no detail to chance.

He kneels in front of it and lowers the night vision goggles over his eyes. A few loosened screws, a snip of the shears and the music stops, and darkness drops over the mansion like a blanket.

The grunt waits, listening as a clamor starts to stir inside, counting slowly to the five minutes they've agreed on for the others to take their positions. Then begins to stand.

There's a noise behind him and he springs to his feet, his hand reaching for the pokéballs at his belt when his eyes land on the silhouette of a person. But he recognizes the black uniform then and lets it drop, a disdained click rolling from his tongue.

“The hell are you doing here?” he hisses. Inside the commotion is growing; someone lets out a scream. The other man adjusts his beret, his eyes shaded by the brim.

“Oh, you know, just checking that everything's going smoothly.”

“It won't if you don't follow the plan,” the grunt retorts, stepping past him. The other lags behind for a moment before following.

“Right. So everyone else's inside by now, yeah?”

“Yeah, what are you, slow?”

“Nah.” There's a strange, almost gleeful note in his voice. “Just making sure before I do this.”

The grunt barely has the time to see the grin that flashes on the other's face as he glances back at him. Then there's a pokéball in his hand and red light's erupting from it: “Ivysaur!”

It's a moment: before the grunt even has a chance to react the pokémon's already followed an implicit command and its vines have wrapped tightly around his body, immobilizing his arms at his sides. “What the—” he manages to blurt out, and then the vines are over his mouth too and his voice is muffled to an useless _hmmpft_.

“Nothing personal,” says the other man. He lifts his head, the grin still on his lips, and the grunt suddenly realizes that his face is not a familiar one. “Don't worry, Ivysaur won't hurt you. He'll just keep you occupied for a while, right, Ivysaur?”

“Saur,” the pokémon confirms. The man gives it a nod, then turns to leave, only to stop mid-step.

“Oh, I hope you don't mind if I borrow these.” He moves closer to reach for his goggles and the grunt manages one good look at him before he slips them from his face: he's young, probably not older than twenty, with hint of a dark stubble lining his cheeks and a few strands of dark hair spilling from under his beret. “I forgot to bring mine. Yeah, yeah, I know, rookie mistake.”

With that he puts them on, taking a moment to look around and let his eyes adjust. Then sprints towards the mansion. In a blink he's gone from sight, leaving the grunt to fruitlessly struggle against the vines' iron grip.

The others have taken out the security guards as planned. One lies unconscious in the entryway, and the young man steps over his body, scanning his surroundings. The guests have been rounded up in the middle of the great hall. No one really pays attention to the eighth team member joining in a few moments too late, and the uniform and the bulky goggles do the rest, concealing his appearance almost entirely.

Blinded by the darkness the guests clutch their pokémon or each other, some demanding to know what's going on, some crying in fear. The seven grunts surround them, their pokémon keeping them under fire: they're typical grunt pokémon, Raticate and Golbat and a Weezing, and based on numbers alone the guests should easily be able to overpower them. But their pokémon aren't trained for fighting. They're trained to be beautiful, spoiled and worth a lot of money to collectors. He on the other hand could probably take them all at once, but that's not what he's here for. At least not for now.

“Hand the pokémon over and no one will get hurt,” one of the grunt says. Some of them do, too petrified to even think to react. One woman tries to resist and gets knocked to the ground with a punch for it, and the man clenches his fists in the uniform's gloves, itching to throw himself at the grunt—but blowing his cover would mean throwing away weeks of work. It's this that's the hardest part; not the danger, not the times he's wound up in the emergency room with a concussion or a couple broken ribs. This.

They shove pokémon and pokéballs alike into brown sacks. Another guest steps forward and is quickly surrounded by the grunts' Golbat and forced to back off, shielding his face with his arms; a Vulpix with silver fur jumps from a woman's arms to growl at the men and is shot with tranquilizer darts. A Growlithe manages to lunge at one of the grunts and bite his arm. The air guns go off again: the Growlithe falls to the floor, crumpling with a confused yelp.

A sack is thrust into the young man's arms: “Don't just stand there, do something.”

He tosses it over his shoulder diligently. The beret and the goggles hide the crease of his brow as he feels the squirming weight against his back.

“Well ladies and gents, it's been a pleasure,” says the same grunt as before, the one who appears to be in charge of the operation. “Thank you for your kind cooperation. Now, Weezing—use smokescreen!”

The guests are engulfed in a cloud of toxic fumes and the group flees, retracing their steps to the van. They crowd in the back, the young man among the others. The engine coughs and starts.

No one notices the small yellow pokémon leaping out of the darkness to follow as well, crouching on the van's bumper.

“Easier than expected,” one of the grunt comments, fastening the knots on one of the sacks. Cautious, the young man slowly backs away a step. He slides a hand in the uniform's pocket and pulls out something: a small device, shaped like a black rectangle. He holds it in a closed fist a few moments, watching the others to ensure that no one is looking in his direction. Then swiftly reaches behind his back and attaches it in a corner, where he hopes it will go unnoticed.

The ride's no longer than ten minutes. When they get off the van they're in front of an anonymous, rundown warehouse, and after taking a quick look around he recognizes the area as part of an industrial complex on the outskirts of the city. He silently mouths a curse. He had hoped that he'd be taken to one of their bases, not just to a storage unit.

Still he follows the others, hauling the sack along. The inside is well lit with bright neon tubes, and after a moment of hesitation he resigns to take off the goggles and lower the brim of his beret back over his eyes. There's more of them here: he counts at least another ten at a rapid glance. And there's tons of sacks and crates full of undoubtedly stolen pokéballs, some being handled by the grunts, some stored on rows of metal shelves.

Well. Maybe he did still find something worthwhile after all.

He lowers his head, trying to blend in with the others as he considers his chances. There's too many of them now to be sure he could take them all. That wouldn't necessarily stop him, usually—he's done much more hotheaded things before—but perhaps it's not the best course of action right now. Even if he held his ground he'd still have to figure out how to haul hundreds of pokéballs out of there, and before any of them could call for backup. None of them seem suspicious yet; maybe it'd serve him best to take advantage of that.

He leaves the sack in the hands of one of the others and sneaks between the rows of shelves. There's another opening at the opposite end and he heads steadfastly in that direction, and ducks under the half-lowered shutter to find himself in a back alley. He waits a moment, making sure he's not being followed; then reaches for the pokégear hooked to his belt.

The noise of the shutter being pushed all the way up makes him freeze. “The hell are you doing out here?” a voice asks.

He breathes in. He drops the pokégear into his pocket and quickly pulls out something else: a lighter, which he holds up in one hand as he turns. “Just needed a smoke, man.”

The grunt standing in the doorway looks at him with narrowed eyes. Crude neon light pours out of the door and onto the asphalt, and in that light the grunt studies him, a crease deepening at the center of his forehead. “You know,” he says, taking a step forward, “I never forget a face. And I don't remember having seen yours before.”

“I'm new,” the young man shrugs. The grunt's eyes don't let him go.

“There were no new agents assigned on duty tonight.”

“Oh, yeah, it was a last minute thing, did no one notify you? Someone had to be replaced, um, what's his name? Billy?”

Sometimes that works. This time it doesn't. “I don't know a Billy.”

“Right—Timmy, then? Jimmy?”

The grunt brings a hand to his belt. “You have ten seconds to identify yourself,” he says. Fine then. The young man tosses the lighter and lets out a sigh.

“You're not stupid, we both know I can't, don't we? So how about we skip this whole part? I'm gonna get away anyway, and it's not gonna be a good time for you.”

The grunt's hand closes around a pokéball. The young man's faster: in a blink he's reached for one of his and stretched his arm forward.

“Charizard!”

Red light washes over the alley and the large pokémon materializes between them, spread wings holding it a few inches from the ground. The grunt is taken aback for a beat, but just as quickly then unhooks his pokéball from his belt:

“Arbok!”

“Charizard, use flamethrower!” the young man commands, wasting no time. Fire spills from the pokémon's jaws and Arbok quickly dives to the ground to dodge the blast, leaving it to scorch some garbage cans.

“Arbok, poison sting!”

“Charizard, use wing attack to deflect it!”

The venomous darts are sent back to the sender by a powerful stroke of Charizard's wing and scatter like sparks in the dark. “Great, Charizard, now use dragon tail!” the man instructs, and the pokémon's tail glows blue as the momentum of its wings flapping pirouettes its body in the air to slam the extremity into the opponent at full force.

Arbok goes flying against the wall of the warehouse. It hisses loudly and manages to lift the front half of its body back into an erect position, swaying, only for another flamethrower to crash into it.

It doesn't get up this time. The grunt calls it back and quickly holds out another pokéball: “Raticate!” he shouts, and with his other hand reaches for something else, a radio. “Requesting immediate backup,” he speaks into it. “Intruder detected, likely a mole.”

“Aw, come on, man, that's not very sporty of you,” the young man says. But the corners of his mouth curl back into a grin, almost excited looking, and his hand grabs the brim of his beret to adjust it, giving it a slight tilt. “But whatever. We're just getting started, right, Charizard?”

“Zard!”

Raticate jumps forward, teeth bared, and the dragon pokémon swiftly dodges to the side. Then there's footsteps and six or seven grunts rush out of the building, flanking the first one. Their pokémon pop out in a series of red flashes. A dozen of eyes glimmer in the low light.

The young man pumps a fist in the air. “Alright. Let's see what you all have got, then.”

Another fire blast takes out two of them. A slash attack takes care of a third. The Raticate lunges again and this time its teeth grab hold of Charizard's arm; but Charizard shakes it off and finishes it with a dragon tail. More pokémon are sent out to surround it, and the dragon spins in the air, a blast of fire erupting from its open mouth, mowing half of them down. Still some manage to dodge it and attack, and Charizard takes a couple blows, staggering slightly for it. It quickly regains the upper hand, though, and at its trainer's command tears into the row with a blow if its wing.

“Well done, Charizard,” the man congratulates it, the grin still hanging onto his lips. “Another flamethrower, now, quick!”

He watches the attack land, engulfing two of his opponents' pokémon in flames. He doesn't notice the grunt sneaking up behind him.

Doesn't notice the hand raising, holding a baton.

But someone else does. “ _Pi-kaaa!_ ” comes a cry out of the dark; and the small yellow pokémon that followed the van jumps out of the corner where it was hiding, waiting. Electricity releases from its body, and the grunt's spine arches backward, his face contorting into a grimace and a scream smothered in his stiffened jaw before the baton falls from his fingers and he collapses to the ground.

“Woah—thanks, buddy, that was close,” says the young man. He stretches one arm, then, and the Pikachu climbs it, perching onto his shoulder. “Let's give Charizard a hand. Use electroweb!”

Pikachu leaps forward. Electric sparks form the shape of a ball and open in a net that traps three of the last few pokémon standing. Charizard takes out the other two in one fell swoop.

“Well.” The man's grin widens as he borrows the words that one of them used at the mansion. “ _It's been a pleasure._ We'll be taking our leave now.”

He hops onto Charizard's back, with Pikachu on his trail. The dragon spreads its wings again and takes to the sky.

“Ekans, quick! Hit them with poison sting! Don't let them get away!”

Another red flash lights up the dark. Charizard dodges out of the way fast enough to avoid the attack; but not quite enough for its rider to avoid it as well.

The young man winces and grasps his left arm, holding back a groan through gritted teeth as pain shoots through his nerves. “Pikapi!” the pokémon next to him cries out. He stretches his lips into a smile as Charizard soars higher into the air, taking them out of reach.

“I'm fine, buddy, don't worry.”

Hovering above the warehouse, he looks down, trying to quickly reorganize his thoughts before the poison begins to cloud his mind. The stolen pokémon. He's gotta get them out of there. “Alright,” he says after a moment. “Let's go get Ivysaur first. Then back to the base.”

In front of the garage turned hideout he stumbles down from Charizard, his knees nearly buckling under his weight. “I'm fine,” he insists, as both pokémon look at him with concern.

His arm throbs. He calls Charizard back and makes it to the door, holding onto the wall. The keys escape from his hand; his vision goes black at the edges. “Damn it,” he mutters, resting his forehead against the metal surface for a second as he tries to catch his breath. Pikachu retrieves the keys for him, and the young man thanks him with another strained smile and finally manages to turn them in the lock.

The light inside hurts his eyes. He staggers across the room, making his way to one of the metal shelves lining the walls. He finds the first aid kit and flips it open and them over: its contents spill onto the shelf and the floor. He casts aside bottles of painkillers, rolls of bandages, cursing under his breath, until his good hand finally closes on a plastic syringe. He removes the uniform's glove with his teeth and rolls up his sleeve, then injects the poison antidote into his arm. It stings, and he breathes in sharply though his teeth and then out in a gasp.

He doesn't wait for it to take effect. Instead he stumbles through the room again, deaf to Pikachu's worried protests, and picks up a black tablet. He unlocks the screen to reveal a map of the city. On it a green dot is pulsating, moving fast along one of the streets.

He smiles. Without taking his eyes off it he reaches into his pocket for his pokégear, and dials a familiar number.

The answer comes fast. “Officer Jenny.”

“Agent K here.” His voice comes out winded, and he takes a couple deep breaths, trying to still it. The pain hasn't subsided yet. “I got one of their storages, full of stolen pokémon. Some stolen just now from the party at the Harper estate. I got, um, compromised, so I expect it'll have been cleaned up by now, but I placed a tracker on one of their vans. I'll give you their coordinates.”

He does. “I'll have a squad after them in a second, hold on,” the officer says. The young man rests his back against the wall. He lets himself slide to the floor and closes his eyes a moment, breathing slowly.

“Dispatched,” Officer Jenny confirms. “It'll be a matter of minutes. We're right on their trail.”

Her voice softens then, dropping the professionalism. She knows him well. “Ash?”

“Yeah?” he groans.

“Are you alright?”

The young man—Ash—lets out a small sigh. “Yeah, yeah, I am. Got hit by a poison sting right as I was getting away.” He can feel the frown without seeing her face and quickly adds: “I'm fine. I already took an antidote. Don't worry.”

“You're going to get yourself killed one of these days.”

“Let 'em try.” A tired grin stretches his lips. They've had this conversation many times. “Really, I'm fine. I've had much worse than this, you know that.”

“Yeah, I know that, and it's exactly why I'm telling you that you're going to get yourself killed,” the woman sighs. “I have a call on my radio. I'll keep you posted.”

She hangs up. Ash breathes in and out again and takes off the beret, dropping it to the floor. He runs a hand though his hair and tilts his head back, his glance wandering towards the wall across from him, the only one free of shelves, where a web of threads and pins spans almost floor to ceiling, connecting locations, pictures, names. Mapping almost two years of investigation. Ash's eyes follow the threads, skipping over the few empty spaces where something was taken off—the few bases and operations he's managed to take down. It's not enough, though; it never is.

Pikachu crouches next to him on the floor, watching him intently to make sure he's okay. Ash rests the back of his head to the wall. The threads spread like tentacles, all leading back to a shaded figure at the center. A name, heard only a few times, in reverent whispers: Giovanni.

“Sooner or later,” he says to the silence of the room, staring straight at it, as if he was there to hear his threat.

***

Misty Waterflower is twenty years old, but at times she feels so much older.

In the mirror of her cramped bathroom she studies herself. The bruise on her left cheekbone she got four nights ago is still visible, though faded to a sickly purple-yellow, and she touches her fingers to it, wincing a little at the dull pain. At least at this point it's pretty safe to say nothing is broken. Good: going to the emergency room is the last option. She sighs and sprays water on her face, lingering for a brief moment in the dark of her hands cupped over her eyes; then slips on a fresh shirt and pulls her hair into a ponytail.

She heats up a cup of coffee in the microwave. She drinks it leaning against the kitchen counter, after adding a liberal amount of sugar: she's never learned to appreciate bitter flavors, which is kind of funny, she guesses, considering the kind of life she leads. In a movie she'd drink her coffee black. In a movie a lot of her life would be different, probably, coated in a glamorous, romanticized aesthetic, as close to reality as the earth to the sun.

Holding the warm cup in her hands, she absentmindedly runs her glance over the small one-room apartment, the entirety of it visible from where she's standing. Not that there's much to see, anyway. At first she still tried to make the spaces she occupied look like a home of sorts, but she gave up quick enough. She never stays in the same place long enough to feel like it's worth the effort. And no amount of cheerful personal touches is going to really hide the fact that this isn't so much a home as it's a hiding place.

And besides, this way she doesn't have to worry about any of it becoming damning evidence, should she leave something behind.

A buzz comes from her nightstand, immediately followed by a second one. Misty sighs again. She sets the cup down and goes to pick up the burner pokégear, grimacing as she reads the name on the outer display though it's exactly what she expected. Matori.

She flips the device open.

_Matori (6:45): The boss wants to see you._

_Matori (6.45): You have half an hour. You know the place. Do not be late. He won't take kindly to being disappointed._

Her stomach twists. That's hardly ever an indicator of good news to come. The last time she was in his office he looked at her with contempt, and before she left he opened a drawer of his mahogany desk, making sure it would be in her line of sight. As he shuffled through it in a seemingly casual gesture she saw pictures of her sisters and the Cerulean gym. He didn't need a word or even a glance for the threat to be extremely clear.

The pokégear buzzes a third time in her hand.

_Matori (6.46): Expecting confirmation._

Misty lets out another frustrated sigh—almost a growl, really—and resigns to type a reply, without deigning it of capitalization of punctuation. She knows that'll tick Matori off, and she takes the slightest bit of pleasure in it meaningless as it may be.

_Misty (6.47): fine_

She drops the pokégear onto the mattress. She puts on her uniform and her boots, and cinches her pokéball belt around her waist. On top of everything she throws a blue windbreaker: the uniform may blend seamlessly into the night, but hardly looks inconspicuous at daytime.

She leaves through the fire escape. In a month and half she's never met any of the building's other tenants. She's caught glimpses of them, and kept track of the times they usually come and go, listening to their keys in the locks and their steps on the stairs through the thin walls; but she's been careful not to give any of them a chance to get a good look at her. She's made the mistake of letting someone get close before. The boss did not take kindly to that either.

Her motorbike is parked behind the building. She hops on and kicks up the brake stand, heading off.

The Viridian gym is recognizable from afar, with its arched roof and its orange walls. There's often trainers coming and going, so Misty parks a block away from it and heads for the back entrance, her hands dug in her pocket and her eyes held low in a “mind your business” stance.

Most people don't know that he still has a personal office here. Officially he retired from the position of gym leader almost ten years ago. Misty was a child at the time, barely eleven and still living a regular if lonely life, unaware of the rot hiding just under the surface of Kanto's society and of the fact that _gym leader_ could be but a smokescreen. Since then Agatha has been filling the vacant role. Almost no one knows that he always retained ownership of the building, nor that the gym has remained at his disposal and functioned as a cover for his activities. That Agatha has been dutifully reporting to him. That for ten years she's acted as a figurehead, meddling with League decisions on his behalf.

Matori is expecting her. “You're late,” she informs her, barely lifting her glance from the report she's compiling. “It's been thirty-two minutes.”

“My apartment is on the other side of town, I haven't learned to fly yet,” Misty retorts. She shrugs off her windbreaker, tossing it on the back of a chair. The dark-haired woman gives a “hm”, flipping the file closed.

“He's not in a good mood,” she warns her. “Something went amiss with a large operation last night. Quite the loss.”

“Great,” Misty sighs. “Do you know what he wants to see me for?”

“He hasn't told me.” Matori leads the way to the door. “What happened to your face?”

“Oh. Nothing.” Misty's hand automatically rises to brush her bruised cheekbone. “I got into a bit of a scuffle on my latest mission, a couple nights ago.”

Another hum, then Matori knocks on the door. “Good luck,” she tells her, stepping aside to let her in.

Misty's insides contort again as she enters the office. Yet she straightens her back, and holds her chin up as the door slides closed behind her. He's sitting at his desk as always, scrawling something on a bunch of papers with a golden fountain pen. Persian is curled at his feet, its eyes lazily following her movements.

She clears her throat. “You requested to see me, sir?”

Giovanni glances up. It's enough to make a chill run down Misty's spine, like every time. “Yes, yes. Come closer,” he says, and takes his attention back to his papers, leaving her to wait with her stomach in knots. Only after a couple minutes he puts down the fountain pen, taps the edge of the papers to his desk to tidy them and sets them aside, looking back up. His dark eyes study her a moment.

“It's no secret that I haven't always been satisfied with your performance,” he starts off. Misty swallows.

“I always strive to do my best, sir.”

He purses his lips in a “hm”. He reaches into his desk's drawer and pulls out a file, and flips the pages slowly, holding it so that she can see her name on the cover. “Would you remind me the reason your mission this past 22 of February failed? As I recall, two of your teammates said in debriefing that you seemed to purposefully let the pokémon escape.”

“They tore the net and escaped. Nothing was purposeful about it.”

Giovanni's eyebrows shoot up slightly. “A remarkably clean tear, considering that none of the captured pokémon could learn cut or similar moves,” he comments. Misty swallows again. Her throat is dry. “And what about April 12? You failed to take out one of the guards when you had the chance to, again according to your teammates' reports.”

“I didn't have a clear enough shot.”

Giovanni flips the file closed and looks at her. His glance pierces straight through her carefully rehearsed excuses. “Do you know why I don't believe that you're being entirely truthful?”

Misty shakes her head.

“Because you're good.” He sets the file aside, watching her still. “I have seen enough of your potential in these three years to know that you're underselling yourself right now. You've successfully completed many operations. You're a quick thinker. You have good battling skills and good aim. You're certainly not stupid. I'm convinced that you could be a very valuable asset for the organization.”

“Thanks, sir—”

“So I'm not at all convinced that you couldn't easily have stopped those pokémon from escaping, had you wanted to, nor that that shot wasn't more than clear enough for you.”

Misty balls her fists in the uniform's gloves, trying to conceal the slight tremble that overtook them. “Now,” he continues. “I am a magnanimous man. I really want to think that you aren't so much intentionally sabotaging me, which as I'm sure you know would be a treacherous act, as you are simply still struggling with an excess of compassion. You're still young; it's not that uncommon at your age. But it needs to be thoroughly eradicated.”

Everything in the tone of his voice conveys the opposite of magnanimous. In front of Misty's eyes flash the pictures of her sisters, left in his open drawer for her to see in a threat that a million words couldn't have made clearer. The walls of the office seem to inch closer.

“I—I can do better,” she promises. “I will do better.”

“I've heard these words before.”

“I mean it this time.”

“I'm starting to get tired of promises.” His fingers drum on the desk, punctuating his words like a ticking clock. Light catches on his garish rings. “Do I need to remind you the reason you're working for me? My half of the deal has been honored. You are failing to honor yours. I have allowed this to go on long enough.”

Misty's hands shake harder. She presses her nails into the fabric of her gloves, hard enough to dig marks into her palms even through them. “What can I do?” she asks. Her voice rises a little despite her best intentions. “I have been successful many times, you've said it yourself. I can't go back in time and undo my failures. So—with respect, sir, what can I do right now if a commitment to do better isn't enough?”

Giovanni raises his eyebrows again. Other than that he's unflinching. “You can start with not talking back to me in that tone,” he answers, and Misty bites the inside of her cheek, forcefully smothering the flame stirring up in her chest. “But I'm glad you asked. There's something I want you to do. Succeed and I'll be willing to turn a blind eye to your past failures.”

He pulls the drawer open again. “We have had a bit of a... disturbance, as of late,” he says, flipping through its contents. “Perhaps you've caught wind of it. Several of our operations have been infiltrated and foiled by someone external to our organization. Most recently last night.”

Oh. She recalls Matori's words as she walked in: _something went amiss with a large operation last night, quite the loss._ Giovanni pulls out another file. “As of now, our best efforts haven't yet been able to put a stop to this. But we're quite positive we have the person's identity.”

He lays the file in front of her. Stapled to the front is a picture of a young man with dark hair and eyes and a Pikachu perched on his shoulder. There's something familiar about him, and Misty squints at the photo, trying to place it.

“His name is Ash Ketchum.”

She blinks. “Ash Ketchum? Isn't that—”

“The former Kanto Champion, yes. Earned the title at age seventeen, on his second try at challenging the Indigo League. Retired from the role of Champion about a year later and pretty much disappeared from public sight.” Giovanni drums his fingers again, this time looking more like a tic that betrays frustration. “It appears that he has since been working as a special agent for the government with the intent of interfering with our organization.”

Misty lifts her eyes from the photo to the man sitting in front of her. “He's a G-Man?”

“That's the correct term, yes. We have dealt with their ilk many times. But he's proved to be quite skilled and elusive so far.”

Misty doesn't ask how they traced the activity back to a name. She doesn't really need to: she knows the organization has its ways. Eyes and ears everywhere, the government not excluded. So she just asks: “What do you want me to do?”

Giovanni looks at her. At his feet Persian spreads its mouth open in a yawn.

“I want you to locate him,” he says. “And I want you to get rid of the disturbance.”

She draws her brow into a frown. “As in capture him, or—”

“Get rid of the disturbance,” he repeats, looking her straight in the eye, “ _permanently._ ”

Misty swallows a lump of air. She glances back at the photo, at the dark haired young man looking ahead with a defiant grin. “You're asking me to kill him?”

“I'm not asking. This is an order.”

She says nothing. Her blood has gone cold. Giovanni hands her the file.

“Everything you need to know is in here,” he says. “Ash Ketchum's whereabouts are unknown at this time, so I do not expect results to be immediate, but I do expect results. This is an opportunity I'm giving you. I am entrusting this mission to you despite your failures because I know your potential, and I want to give you a true chance to fulfill it. I hope you won't prove me wrong.”

Misty holds the folder in her hands, the edges crinkling slightly in her trembling fingers, holding too tight. When he speaks again his voice has dropped any semblance of pleasantry. “Remember. Everything that you hold dear belongs to me, and is mine to do as I please with, if you give me a reason to. Was I clear?”

She thinks again of her sisters' pictures. She nods.

“Extremely clear, sir.”

“Good.” He lays back in his chair, slipping back into his usual tone. “Then get to work, and prove that you won't let compassion get in the way of being a valuable asset for Team Rocket. You're dismissed.”

“How did it go?” Matori asks, glancing up from above the rim of her glasses. Misty glares in her general direction and says nothing.

The woman arches her eyebrows. “I was just asking. No need to be rude.”

Misty tosses her windbreaker back on. “See you, Matori,” she cuts it short, and marches out of the building without another word. Outside she stops. She glances down at the folder in her hands and at the picture, at that stupid confrontational grin. Suddenly she wants to slap it off his face without having ever met him. She settles for kicking an abandoned soda can off the curb.

“Fuck,” she sighs out loud, to the empty street.

Ash Ketchum is twenty years old, too.

He was born in 1987. He's from Pallet Town, a small town only a few days' walk from Viridian. He started his pokémon trainer journey at the age of ten. He competed in the Indigo League a first time, placing in the top sixteen. He then traveled to Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos. At sixteen he became Champion of the Alola region. Then he went back to Kanto and challenged the Indigo League again, and this time he won and went on to challenge the Elite Four, earning the title of Kanto Champion as well. He defended it for thirteen months before suddenly renouncing it on his own will.

He has a mother, Delia. She's very young, not even forty yet. No father. No siblings.

His closest companion is a Pikachu. They're partners in his work, too. Many times he's apparently gotten out of a dire situation thanks to the pokémon's intervention.

Sitting on the bed in her small apartment Misty flips through the pages of his file, memorizing one piece of information after another. She could have met him: she started a pokémon journey at the same age, although she never made it to the League. Maybe their paths almost crossed at some point.

She drops the folder on the mattress and reaches for her laptop. She types his name in the search bar: a video from three years ago is the first result, the award ceremony of the Indigo League. He holds the trophy high above his head, his Pikachu on his shoulder. He looks happy.

Misty shakes her head. _What the hell did you think you'd accomplish?_ Team Rocket's existed for longer than either of them have been alive. It's existed for longer than _Giovanni_ has been alive. The stories of those who have tried to oppose it don't tend to have a happy ending. _What made you think you'd be the one to make a difference?_

She pauses the video on a frame of him smiling. It's an incredibly bright smile, infectious even through the screen; but staring at it only fills her with dread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know Ash's Bulbasaur chose not to evolve back in the original series. This story takes place ten years later, however, and after thinking about it for a bit I decided to go with it having changed its mind in that timespan.  
> And yes, it'll be explained how both Ash and Misty ended up doing what they're doing—in due time!


	2. II

[ FROM THE ARCHIVES OF _THE ECHO OF JOHTO_ ]

_**ELITE FOUR MEMBER AND EX CHAMPION DEAD IN VAN CRASH** _

_By Alexa Paquet, April 28, 2005_

_BLACKTHORN CITY -- The Pokémon League and the entire world of pokémon training mourn today as Elite Four member and once-Champion Lance perished in a tragic accident. Lance, 41, was driving along a mountain road near his hometown when he allegedly lost control of his vehicle and capsized down a 600-foot ravine. When help reached the scene it was already much too late, and the former Champion was declared dead upon reaching the Blackthorn hospital._

_Blackthorn Officer Jenny says aspects of the former Champion's death appear “suspicious”, as the tire tracks on the road show no evidence of braking. A police investigation is currently taking place to exclude foul play._

_Lance held the record of longest running Champion of the joined Indigo and Johto Leagues, having defended the title for eight years until passing the torch to seventeen-year-old Pallet born Ash Ketchum in the spring of last year, and had since returned to occupy a position in the Kanto-Johto Elite Four. A public funeral service will be held on May 1 st._

***

Pallet Town is even smaller than Misty expected.

It's a handful of houses scattered around a hill, surmounted by a wind turbine. Her motorbike feels out of place on the dirt roads, way more noticeable than in a city like Viridian, and she parks it out of sight, securing it to a lamppost along the street. She glances at herself in the rear mirror as she takes off her helmet, checking that the foundation hiding her bruise didn't wipe off, then tucks her hair under a baseball cap and grabs her backpack. The helmet and her windbreaker she leaves under the seat. It's a warm day, and she's wearing civvies, not her uniform.

For a few moments while she drove she entertained the idea of running away. Of taking a different turn, getting lost. But Giovanni's words clung to her like fingers around her throat, clad with garish rings. _Everything that you hold dear belongs to me._

She doesn’t expect to find the G-Man here. According to his file he’s hardly been seen in Pallet for the past two years. But well, she’s gotta start somewhere.

It doesn't take her long to find the house: she recognizes it first from the garden, brimming with flower bushes, like in the pictures she saw in the file. For a while she stands looking at it, tormenting her lower lip between her teeth. The fingers squeeze.

There's no running away, she reminds herself. Not for her.

She swallows. Then puts on her best face and goes to ring the doorbell.

“Just a moment!” comes a muffled cheerful voice from inside. It's more like a minute or two, and Misty waits on edge, the temptation to turn away and run tugging at her still. Before she can do something rash though there's the patter of slippers, and the door unlocks.

Delia Ketchum's eyes are kind and bright. Her eyebrows crease slightly as she looks Misty up and down, her brown hair falling over her shoulder in a ponytail, a pink apron on top of her clothes. She's got a smudge of flour on her left cheek. A Mr. Mime in a matching apron and oven mitts peeks behind her.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, um.” Misty forces out a small laugh. “This is a bit embarrassing. I was wondering if I could use your phone? I was heading for Viridian City and I think I got a little lost, and my pokégear is out of battery. I—huh, I just need to call my sister to let her know I probably won't make it to Viridian before tomorrow. It'll only be a moment, promise.”

Good thing that a dose of awkwardness is probably lending to her credibility right now—lying has never been among the qualities Giovanni saw worthy of praise. It seems to work.

“Say no more.” Delia steps aside to let her in, dusting her hands on her apron. “You're a little off, Viridian's a few days' walk from here. This way.”

Misty thanks her profusely and follows her along the hallway, scanning her surroundings. There's some framed photos on the wall, most of them showing a kid or a teenager with the same dark hair and toothy smile as the photos and videos she saw of Ash Ketchum. Other than those, though, no sign that anyone other than Delia and her Mr. Mime has lived here recently. No extra pair of slippers by the door, no coat tossed on the back of a chair.

“Here, dear.” Delia stops and gestures to a white old school videophone. “You know how to use it, yes? I'll be in the kitchen, I've got something in the oven.”

Mr. Mime lags behind her as she hurries off, giving Misty an oblique, slightly unsettling stare. “Come, Mimey!” Delia thankfully calls it, and the pokémon obliges, leaving her alone in the hallway.

 _Ready, set, go._ She dials a number and immediately presses her fingers to the hook to hang up. Keeping an eye on the door, she reaches into her backpack as she pretends to speak to her sister and pulls out a screwdriver. The back of the receiver won’t budge. She mutters a curse, a breath caught in her lungs.

It comes loose at last. She inserts the bug like she learned in her training, swiftly, her pulse racing. The pieces of the receiver fit back together with a _click._

“Okay, see you there then!” she says out loud, tossing the backpack back on her shoulder; then puts the phone down. The hallway is still empty.

She breathes, slowly. She did it.

She takes another careful look around as she retraces her steps. A glance into the living room again reveals nothing that doesn't look like it belongs to Delia. She takes a moment to look at some of the photos on the wall: Ash and Delia with an older man with gray hair she recognizes as Samuel Oak, the renowned pokémon professor. Ash's file mentioned him as well. Ash with a group of friends, his Pikachu always on his shoulder. A younger Delia smiling at the camera, brown hair in two braids and a green flannel shirt.

On the door to the kitchen she stops, looking in. “Did you manage to reach your sister?” Delia asks, knelt in front of the oven and busy taking out enough trays of cookies to feed a regiment and handing them to Mr. Mime.

“Yes. Thank you.” Misty joins her hands together and bows her head. “Just one more thing and I'll be out of your hair, promise—could I use your bathroom, if it's not too much to ask?”

“Oh, of course! Upstairs, second door to the left.”

Misty thanks her one more time and takes herself to the upper floor. She doesn't go for the bathroom, though, and instead pushes the nearest door open by a crack to peek inside: she makes out a queen-size bed, a sewing machine on a table under the window. Delia's bedroom. She lets a click roll off her tongue and softly pulls the door closed. She turns to the next one, on the other side of the hallway.

It opens on another bedroom, this one with bright green walls and a loft bed. Misty hesitates a moment, listening to check that Delia is still going about in the kitchen. Then she steps in.

It looks like a kid's room more than a twenty-year-old’s. There's pokémon posters stuck to the walls with yellowed tape and a bean bag shaped like a Snorlax across from her on the floor, and a handful of old worn toys among the keepsakes on the shelves. Lined on top of a drawer are several trophies and badge cases, with the one from the Indigo League at the center. The image of Ash holding it high above his head in the ceremony video flashes in her mind as she looks at it.

A slight lump closes her throat, choking her a little. She swallows it down.

The pokéball-patterned comforter on the bed doesn't have a single crease. She runs a finger along the desk: no dust, but the whole room looks too neat and tidy for someone to have slept here recently. She doubts there's anything to be found here. Still she slips her backpack off her shoulder and reaches inside a second time, closing her hand on another small microphone. After a moment of consideration she elects to tape it behind a leg of the drawer.

She's just stood back up when the door creaks open.

“Mime?”

She jumps and spins on her feet. Mr. Mime is looking cross at her from the doorstep. “Oh,” she blurts out, heart pounding. “Sorry, I must have taken a wrong turn. I keep getting lost today, huh?”

The pokémon keeps frowning at her. For a few moments they stare at each other, the silence stretching thin between them. Misty swallows and evaluates her chances, ready to reach for one of her pokéballs.

“Mimey! Are you upstairs?” comes Delia's voice. The pokémon turns, releasing her from its glare.

“Mime,” it grumbles. It steps back into the hallway and crosses its arms, watching her expectantly. Misty tentatively follows, earning another menacing grumble for her trouble.

Delia intercepts them at the bottom of the stairs. “Did you find the bathroom?” she asks. She's holding a tray with a pile of cookies and a tea jug. Misty nods.

“Yes—I got a little lost on the way, sorry, your Mr. Mime was just—”

Delia shakes her head as if to say _it's alright_. “No worries, Mimey is a little nosey sometimes. Why don't you stay a moment? Have a glass of iced tea to refresh yourself before you set back on your journey.”

Mr. Mime offers a disgruntled _mime._ Misty blinks. “Oh—no, I can't accept. You've already been so nice—”

“Please.” Delia laughs. “I made way too many of these cookies. And it's always nice to have a chat with someone— Mimey, what? We'll leave some cookies for you too, don't worry.”

Well. This was not in her plans, but perhaps she can play it to her advantage. “Do you live here alone?” she asks as she follows her into the living room. The woman sets the tray down on the coffee table, shooing Mr. Mime as it keeps trying to protest.

“You could say so. My son technically still lives here, but I see him once in a blue moon.” She pats the pillows of the couch energetically to adjust them. “Sit, dear.”

“Is he a pokémon trainer?”

“Was. He's doing something else now, but it keeps him just as busy. He's got no time for his poor old mom, that brat!”

She says the last words in an exaggerated dramatic tone, without dropping her smile. Misty reaches for a cookie from the tray and bites into it, then stops, feeling her stomach close. Briefly she sees herself from the outside, sitting on a stranger's couch and eating her cookies while she plans to kill her son. The sugar sticks nauseating to her palate.

“And you, dear? Are you a pokémon trainer too?”

She gulps down the cookie. “Yes,” she lies. “I'm a Water specialist.”

That's what she used to be, at least. For a second she savors it, almost letting herself believe it. “Oh, how lovely!” Delia comments, without noticing the shadow that clouded Misty's eyes.

There's another photo on the coffee table. In it Ash can't be older than two of three, and Delia is holding him in her arms, both of them wearing matching smiles on their faces. Misty looks at it as Delia chats away about how she once wished she could be a pokémon trainer as well and how wonderful it must be and in her chest suddenly begins to swell a wave of anger, as thunderous as it's unexpected. She doesn't investigate it. Instead she drinks her iced tea, nodding along. Then pretends to notice the clock on the wall and rises from the couch with a gasp.

“Oh, shoot—I didn't realize it was already this late! I'm so sorry, I really need to be on my way. Thank you for everything, really.”

Delia looks surprised, but smiles again then, and stands as well to escort her to the door. “Alright, I won't hold you.”

“I really can't thank you enough, Mrs—”

She stops herself just in time. “Oh, call me Delia,” the woman says, unlocking the door. “And you are?”

“Rose.” It was her mother's name. Delia takes it in with a nod.

“A beautiful name. Have a safe journey then, Rose!”

Misty thanks her one more time and waves a goodbye, holding onto a smile that feels like slowly cracking glass. Once she's out of Delia's sight she lets it shatter. She speeds up her steps until she almost breaks into a run, her unnamed anger a tremble deep within her.

_She's ten years old and five badges into her pokémon journey. She's alone, aside from her pokémon, but she tells herself it's alright. It's not like she's not used to it, or to taking care of herself. And besides, her pokémon are great company, even the ones that don't have a face, and she'd be ready to throw hands at anyone who says otherwise._

_She's thinking about the next badge she plans to win as she walks into the Saffron pokémon center. She heard Sabrina is tough, but she isn't too worried: she'd heard the same about Surge, and Erika, and then she beat them both. Erika smiled at her, beautiful in her yukata, and told her she believed she has what it takes to make it far as she handed her her rainbow badge. Misty’s heart jumped in her chest a little._

_She's not thinking about home, or about her sisters. She's taken by surprise when the Nurse Joy at the counter addresses her by name._

“ _Are you Misty Waterflower, perchance?”_

_Misty frowns. “Yes. Why?”_

“ _Your sister called the pokémon center yesterday and left a message for you. She said to call her as soon as you can.”_

“ _She didn't say what she wants?”_

_Nurse Joy shakes her head. “It sounded urgent, though. I'd give her a call right away if I were you.”_

_Plenty of different hypotheses crowd into Misty's mind as she heads towards the row of videophones along the wall. All of them wrong. The phone rings a few times in the Cerulean gym before the screen turns on on Daisy's face._

“ _Misty! Finally!” She looks like she's been crying: there's red rimming her eyes and her face looks blotched and puffy. “I've been, like, calling all over the place all day trying to reach you! You don't carry a pokégear, and you never call, how on earth is one supposed to reach you when we have like no idea where you even are?”_

_Whatever it is, she didn't call to get yelled at. “Has it ever occurred to you,” she snaps “that maybe I don't call because I don't want to talk to you?!”_

_Normally her sister would fire back with something just as pointed. But this time she doesn't. This time her face seems to crack, fall apart a little, and she brings a hand to her forehead and pinches the bridge of her nose between shaky fingers as if to stop an incoming headache. She keeps it like that a couple moments, hiding her eyes, and despite herself Misty feels some of her anger dissipate into worry._

“ _Daisy...? What happened?”_

_Daisy lowers her hand. She takes a deep breath; and the few seconds before she speaks again stretch on forever._

“ _It's about dad.”_

Back in her empty apartment in Viridian she listens as Delia chats on the phone with one of her friends, guilt nibbling at her. They don't mention Ash. The friend vents about her crumbling marriage and Delia replies in a cheerful but understanding tone: some men just aren't equipped to handle strong women like us, are they? They agree to meet the next day to go on a morning run.

Misty sighs and takes her headphones off. She goes back to his file, and flips through the pages going over the reports of the operations he foiled once again, looking for a common thread. The robbery at the Harper mansion, two nights ago. Before that a break-in at the Kanto power plant. A long-running smuggling of shiny pokémon.

She purses her lips. Most were carefully planned operations, preceded by weeks if not months of preparation. Somewhere along the way he must have caught wind of them. Found a way to blend in unsuspected, awaiting the right moment to take action.

She wonders if she could figure out a pattern. Find him by playing the same game, perhaps.

The light on her screen blinks on, informing her that Delia picked up the phone again. She reaches for her headphones again with a sigh.

_« ...llo stranger! I gather the conference is keeping you busy? »_

A hint of laughter. It's an older man's voice. _« Very. It's been an extremely fascinating few days, though! Professor Rowan just gave the most interesting lecture about pokémon evolution. I can't wait to cross-reference this new data with my studies. »_

_« Sounds like you're having fun! Oh, before I forget, I stopped by at the lab to check on Tracey earlier. Brought some cookies for him and the pokémon. He mentioned you've got some mail from Gary. »_

_« Noted, thank you! I should be back in Pallet in a few days anyway. Everything alright at the lab? »_

So this must be Professor Oak. The file mentioned him as someone important to Ash, something akin to a father figure. A quick search tells her he must be attending the annual conference about pokémon biology that's currently being held in the Sevii Islands.

_« ...said that Ash's Tauros escaped again, but they only demolished three fences this time. »_

She tunes back in at the name. Professor Oak laughs. _« Well, that's quite the improvement from the five they destroyed last time, »_ he says; then pauses. _« Have you heard anything from Ash, by the way? »_

A sigh: _« I haven't. »_

_« Nothing still? »_

_« It's been over two months now. »_ Another moment of silence. _« I don't even know where he is, or what he's doing exactly. He won't tell me. Last I heard he said he was in Viridian, but who knows where he is by now. Or if he’s even still in Kanto. »_

_« I'm sure he just doesn't want you to worry. »_

_« Well should I not? 'Oh, I'm not giving you any details about what I'm doing because I know you'd find them worrying' doesn't make them not-worrying, wouldn't you agree? »_

_« Maybe he's just been busy. You know, his— »_

_« His work, yes. I know. I'd just like to also know that he's all in one piece. »_

_« Well, some piece of our former regional Champion being found somewhere would have made quite a sensation. You'd have heard about that, I think. »_ Professor Oak tries to lighten the mood with a gentle laugh. _« Listen, Delia, I'm sure he's alright. He's quite the resourceful, talented young man, you know this better than me, surely. I'm positive this is nothing he can't handle. »_

_« I hope you're right. C'mon, now tell me about your lecture. I could use a distraction right now. »_

_« Oh, I hoped you would ask! You see, Rowan is theorizing that about 90% of pokémon might be connected through— »_

They keep talking, but Misty rips her headphones off in frustration anyway, closing a fist around them. It's useless, Delia isn't in touch with him. But it takes her a moment to realize that it's not _that_ that's roused the furious wave inside her.

Everything about his life looked perfect. He had a career and a dream he didn't have to give up, he had friends, a mother who worries about him and loves him enough to have her home full of his pictures and keep his bedroom clean while he's away. Everything and he threw it away to place a target on his own back that now she has to be the one to hit. Everything and he exchanged it for a life of danger, of hiding away from his loved ones. Of standing under Giovanni's looming shadow.

—a life not so different from hers. But he had a choice.

Her eyes turn back to the file. The picture stapled to the cover looks back at her, frozen in its smug grin. “What an idiot,” she spits, releasing her fist to reveal the half-moon marks she's carved into her palm.

***

_POLICE INTERVENTION FOILS TEAM ROCKET ROBBERY_

It’s on the front page, right at the center. Ash makes no attempt to hold back the grin that spreads across his face and skims the article, checking that it doesn’t mention him. Only a vague reference to an anonymous tip setting the police on the right track. At the bottom is a picture of Officer Jenny standing next to some of the pokémon retrieved from the warehouse, and he holds up the newspaper, so that the pokémon on his shoulder can see it as well.

“We did a good job, huh?”

Pikachu scowls at him a little. “Pika,” he reprimands him, and Ash laughs it off, dropping the newspaper on the counter.

“I know, I know. But it was nothing serious, was it? Good as new already.”

He flexes his left arm to prove his point. A faint lingering ache twinges in his muscles, but he hides it—it _will_ be good as new, same thing, right? No point worrying about it. Pikachu knows him well enough to still look unimpressed, of course, but also well enough to know when insisting is a lost cause, so he doesn’t. Ash grabs an apple from the counter and bounces it in his hand before taking a bite off it; then turns to face the scheme on the wall. For a couple moments he stands watching the web of threads and clues.

He walks up to it and begins taking down the pieces concerning the robbery at the Harpers’. It leaves a small empty space, hardly even noticeable. One tentacle cut, with who knows how many others ready to take its place.

It was Lance who drew that comparison first. He sounded weary as he did, bitter, like he was shouldering a weight and his strength was beginning to falter. Tentacles spread under the surface of Kanto’s society, like an Octillery, reaching into the most unsuspected aspects. He’d been cutting and cutting away for a while, years, but it would never be enough until he reached the head. There would always be more. _I’m not giving up,_ he said, thought the hardened lines of his face seemed to tell the start of a different story. _But sometimes it does feel like it’s all in vain._

He doesn’t quite see it that way, though, even after two years. Maybe there’ll be another robbery tomorrow, or the next day. But the one he managed to stop yesterday does count for something. The pokémon Officer Jenny retrieved and handed back to their trainers would still be in Team Rocket’s hands if he hadn’t gotten involved. That’s _something_. To them it won’t matter less because it didn’t bring him closer to Giovanni.

Still the thought of Lance stirs a twinge somewhere in his chest, far more painful than the one in his injured arm. Before he can dwell on it though something catches his eye, and he pauses, frowning at the wall.

Something’s not right. Something he’d overlooked: two days ago the Viridian police received a report of a black van parked at lengths in the central area of the city. No trace of it when the patrol reached the scene. He’d assumed it might be related to the robbery, perhaps scouting the area to secure the path to an escape, but it’s neither close to the estate nor to the warehouse where the stolen pokémon were stored. No possible escape route that would have brought them that far into the city, at least that he can see.

He purses his lips, reflecting for a moment. “Hmm. Well maybe it’s time to get back to work already. What do you think, Pikachu?”

“ _Chuu_ ,” Pikachu admonishes him, but he’s already turned his back to the wall and headed for the door.

“Aah, I’ve already rested enough.” He leaves the half-eaten apple on the counter and grabs his jacket from the back of a chair. “I just want to take a look around. It won’t take long.”

Outside he calls Charizard out of its pokéball. “How are you feeling, buddy? Are you up for a little recon?”

“Zard,” the pokémon answers eagerly, spreading its wings. Ash gives it a nod and hops onto its back.

“Alright then. Let’s head for the city center!”

Charizard takes flight, leaving behind the hideout and the suburbs. Viridian City stretches below them with its office complexes and its green rooftops, the arched roof of the gym a recognizable landmark. Its topography is as familiar as the lines on the palm of his hand: his travels first and his work now have brought him all over Kanto and the world, but Viridian’s where he’s been stationed the longest. A lot of threads led him back here. He might be wrong—he sure has been before—but there’s a hunch that keeps telling him that there’s something to be found here. Something waiting.

They slow down as they approach the center, circling the area carefully. The report spoke of a van parked in the street behind the Pokémon Center. There’s nothing there, even on a closer inspection, and they venture further, past the city park and another office complex. All clear there too, it seems. Charizard veers left, towards Viridian’s Trainer House.

“Zard!”

Ash looks. The corner of a black vehicle pokes from the back street. Charizard swiftly dives in that direction, and they hover above it, looking down: a black van parked just out of sight, with the windows obscured.

Ash’s brow furrows. With a nudge of his knees he silently steers the pokémon back into the air, and they scout the area again, slowly. Sure enough, it doesn’t take him long to spot a second van, about a block’s distance from the first.

So he wasn’t wrong. The report had nothing to do with the Harpers’. There’s something else cooking up, another operation, that slipped under his radar as he was caught up in the previous lead.

“What did I tell you, huh?” he whispers under his breath, as Pikachu perches tense on his shoulder. They fly in a circle one more time: a third van is near the park, shielded by a bunch of trees. From up there it becomes clear at a glance that they’re forming a triangle, surrounding something. The Trainer House.

No need to wonder what makes it an appealing target. A place where some of the strongest trainers gather to challenge each other, sure to be full of strong pokémon.

He chews pensively on his lower lip. A target like that requires a large deployment of forces, too. It’s not like at the Harpers’, where hardly any fighting back attempt was expected; these are some of the most skilled trainers in Kanto. It’ll take an equally skilled squad to overpower them. A much riskier scenario to infiltrate, for sure.

Well, when has that ever stopped him.

“Alright. Back to the base for now,” he instructs Charizard, a familiar thrill of something he might almost call excitement stirring through his limbs. “Let’s find out exactly what’s going on.”

***

[ FROM THE ARCHIVES OF _THE ECHO OF JOHTO_ ]

**_NO FOUL PLAY INVOLVED IN FATAL VAN CRASH, SAYS OFFICER JENNY_ **

_By Alexa Paquet, May 3, 2005_

_BLACKTHORN CITY -- Police investigation about the death of former regional Champion Lance came to an abrupt halt mere days after the tragic accident. “No evidence of foul play was found upon close inspection,” Blackthorn Officer Jenny declared in a brief press conference yesterday afternoon, despite having initially theorized the opposite. The conference was cut short with a refusal to accept further questions. […]_

***

Misty’s pokébear buzzes.

_Matori (10:42): I’m not authorized to disclose this kind of information._

_Misty (10:42): come the hell on Matori. You’ve known me for 3 years_

_Matori (10:43): Exactly. After three years you should be well aware that I don’t make a habit of going against the boss’s orders._

_Misty (10:44): couldn’t you make an exception just for once? I’ll owe you one_

_Matori (10:45): I don’t foresee an occasion where I might find myself needing a favor from you in the near future._

_Misty (10:45): do you foresee any occasions where you’d rather avoid my fist in your face???_

_Matori (10:46): Rude as always._

Misty stares at the screen of the pokégear. She lets out a forceful sigh, trying to quell the raging tremble stirring in her middle, and for a few moments she looks at the blinking cursor, biting the inside of her cheek. At last she forces herself to swallow an ounce of pride and try again.

_Misty (10:50): Sorry. This would really help me, Matori. I promise he’ll never know. I won’t bother you again for a while._

The check next to her last message turns blue. No answer, though, even after a good five minutes, and she angrily drops her head into her hands, resisting the impulse to toss the pokégear across the room. She casts it aside and turns back to the pages of the file, scattered across the table. The Harper mansion. The shiny pokémon smuggling. The power plant break in. All calculated steps, she’s sure. He had to be aware of the operations beforehand to figure out the weak link that let him slip in unnoticed. There has to be a method, a pattern.

( _I do not expect results to be immediate,_ Giovanni said, and his presence looms around her, drawing air away from the room; _but I do expect results._ )

Bugging his house brought her nowhere. Delia doesn’t know any more than she does and the microphone she placed in his room caught only dead silence as expected.

She needs another strategy. But she’s got the feeling there’s an answer in there somewhere, just beginning to map out in front of her eyes. If only she had something to point her in the right direction—

The pokégear buzzes again, startling her. Her eyes dart back to the screen.

_Matori (11:05): Just for this once, and I expect you to keep your word. Forwarding you the files._

Misty exhales. She opens her laptop: an envelope icon pops up after a few moments, signaling that she’s got new mail. She drums her fingers impatiently as the attachment downloads.

 _CONFIDENTIAL_ , a header of the top of each page says.

She’s not supposed to see this; only Giovanni, Matori and few others would normally be privy of everything, and her heart pounds as she skims the pages, almost as if she could feel Giovanni’s breath on her neck. But the G-Man’s next move has to be in here, somewhere among the data of Team Rocket’s planned operations.

She goes back to the beginning and starts again, scanning the words on the screen more carefully.

Perhaps with a bit of luck she can use his own methods against him. Figure out a possible target, blend in unnoticed and wait, just as he does. Turn his own calculated moves into a trap.

Perhaps with a bit of luck she can beat him at his own game.

Delia mentioned Viridian, and Ash’s recent activity has been mostly centered around it and nearby cities, so that’s where she focuses her attention as well as she browses through the files Matori sent her. There’s an operation planned tonight at the Museum of Science in Pewter City. It doesn’t look like something too likely to catch his interest, truthfully: it’s smaller scale than the ones he tends to infiltrate and the stakes are low while he almost seems to favor a risk component. But she can make it to Pewter in half a day’s drive and she won’t risk missing a chance.

The realization that she’s gauged enough of his character to feel like she knows him a little gives her pause. She makes the conscious effort to only refer to him in her head as _the G-Man_ , hardening herself.

She puts on her uniform and her pokéball belt. She hesitates a moment then, standing in the middle of her apartment with a breath held behind her teeth; then kneels next to her bed and pulls out the black suitcase pushed under the mattress. She wipes dust off its surface with a gloved hand and opens it.

The gun’s barrel glints faintly, catching the light. Most of the time she doesn’t carry it: her pokémon more than suffice as weapons. But for what she needs to do this time a bullet is a better fit. Cleaner. Quicker.

Yet for a minute she only looks at it, the muscles in her jaw tense, a line creasing the middle of her forehead. The pictures of her sisters and the Cerulean gym flash once again at the back of her mind. The invisible grip around her throat tightens, cutting her breath in two.

She takes the gun. She loads eleven bullets into the magazine and pushes it back in place, then clips the holster to her belt. She pulls down her blue windbreaker to hide it, along with the R on her uniform.

She’s in Pewter City by dusk. Hiding in the shadows, she reaches the planned location first, and for the next couple hours she waits, crouched on a scaffolding outside of an area of the museum that’s currently closed for renovations. With her back pressed against the wall she watches as the lights in the rest of the building go out, signaling closing time. It won’t be long till they’re here.

Slipping in is easy. The group of Rockets passes under her feet, entering the building through a breach hidden by the scaffolding. She waits for them to be inside, then leaps down from her position and follows.

She sneaks up behind the last of the group as they split, a woman more or less her size. She lets one of her pokéballs fall into her palm. Her thumb finds the release button. “Supersonic,” she whispers as her Zubat appears in the museum’s hallway, and the woman staggers and falls to her knees, clutching her head as the piercing sound waves stun her. Misty lets a few seconds pass. “Enough,” she commands as soon as the woman crumples to the floor and stops moving, and crouches to drag her unconscious form behind a corner. She’ll be out for a few minutes. It should be enough.

“Sorry. You’re my ticket in,” she whispers, then calls Zubat back and hurries to take her place. She follows the steps of the plan to a T, deactivating the alarms and stripping the museum’s glass cases of their fossils.

As the group gathers back by the entrance she studies the others intently, looking for a nervous misstep that might betray the presence of someone else that’s not supposed to be there. Nothing clues her in, though, and at a more careful glance none of their faces match the one she’s memorized every feature of.

She’s wasted enough time. He isn’t here. She loads the stolen fossils into the van and waits, keeping a watchful eye on the group.

“Anybody seen anything suspicious?” one of the Rockets questions, voice low. “I heard word another operation got messed with the other night.”

“Nothing on my end,” another shrugs. The engine starts with a cough. “On board, come on.”

So others are aware of him. That’s some interesting information if nothing else. She stands aside as the others climb into the back of the vehicle, ready to take off as soon as they won’t be paying attention to her.

“Stop where you are!”

She turns: three security guards stand across from them. The Rockets quickly grab their pokéballs, sending out their Zubat and Ekans to face their Growlithe. Misty hesitates just a second; then reaches for one of hers as well.

Staryu, her ace and the remainder she kept of a past life, materializes in the museum’s courtyard in a flash of red. “Use tackle towards the guards!” she instructs, and the pokémon hurls itself at them, throwing two off balance as its spinning arms collide with their bodies and stunning the third with a blow to the chin all in one fell swoop. One of the Growlithe lunges at it, but the elliptic motion of the attack brings it back at her feet and out of reach, and a swift water gun fends the opponent off.

In the commotion that follows she calls Staryu back, thanks the pokéball with a kiss for the good job, and flees between the trees taking advantage of the other Rockets still being focused on the fight. She dashes for her motorbike, kicks the brake stand, starts the engine. She leaves behind the museum first and Pewter City next.

Luck wasn’t on her side. The net she cast for the G-Man to fall into came back empty.

 _Patience,_ she reminds herself, wind blowing in her helmet as she cuts through the night. She didn’t realistically expect to find him on her first try. But being patient has never been her forte and frustration tugs at her, digging restless claws at the back of her mind.

By the first lights of dawn she’s back in Viridian. She doesn’t take time to rest; instead she downs a cup of coffee and goes straight back to Matori’s files. There’s a break-in planned to take place at the Viridian City Trainer House barely twenty hours from now. Objective: high level pokémon. Several between former Indigo Conference semifinalists and runner-ups are expected to be present.

She looks at the screen, her lip caught between her teeth.

This one’s a more important operation. It fits the criteria: higher stakes, planned at length.

She forces herself to lower her expectations, telling herself again to be patient. Yet some part of her mind, the same that feels as though she’s begun to know his, refuses to listen.

***

“What do you want this time?”

No time wasted in pleasantries, good—time’s already short enough as it is. Ash opens the diner’s menu and holds it in front of his face, answering without turning to look at the two people and the pokémon sitting in the booth to the back of his. It looks a little comical, probably, more like a scene from a spy movie than an actually convenient way to exchange information, especially since he has to raise his voice a little to make himself heard over the chatter of the diner. He supposes it’s what he gets for letting them set the conditions of their meeting.

“The Trainer House. What do you know about it?”

“Huh, nice place, I guess? We tried to sneak in once, maybe a couple years back? Got our asses kicked pretty hard. Would not recommend.”

He drops his head in frustration, letting out a sigh. “I mean,” he groans, “do you know of any plans for it? Soon, possibly tonight.”

“Afraid not,” says the woman. In the reflection on the salt shaker he sees her lay back in the booth, putting her hands behind her head in a disinterested stance. He sighs again.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we haven’t been in anyone’s good graces for quite some time. We don’t tend to hear much of what’s going on.”

He turns to glance at the three. Years and he’s still not entirely sure if he can trust them or not, but he’s gotten quite good at recognizing when they’re feeding him lies or half-truths. He doesn’t think they are now, so he drops the menu on the table and begins to stand, holding out one arm for Pikachu to climb back on his shoulder. “Fine. Not gonna waste any more time then, I’m kind of in a hurry. Come, Pikachu.”

“Hey, um, if you want some advice,” the man holds him as he steps past their table, “it’s got a window on the roof that’s easy to sneak in from. On the back. That’s how we got in that one time.”

He considers. “That’s kinda useful. Thanks.”

The man’s green eyes lock on his for a moment. “They’re probably gonna send some tough people for this. It’s a place where lots of strong trainer hang out. Be careful, kid.”

“I’m not a kid anymore,” he retorts. A slight grin tugs at the corner of his lips then. “And I’ll manage. I always do. Here, buy yourselves some dinner. Thanks for the help.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a couple scrunched bills, and leaves them on their table as he heads for the diner’s exit. Outside, though, the smirk dwindles and falls from his face, and his brow draws back into a frown as he walks away, keeping his head low to blend with the passerbys. Another dead end. None of his attempts turned up anything useful about the operation on such a short notice: nothing from police reports, nor from any of his sources. But when he scouted the area again in the evening the black vans were still there, and again still this morning. He entertained the idea of going on the offensive, but for all he knows he could be wasting his chance, blowing his cover on a decoy while the plan would carry on alerted of his interference. The other night was not the first time he got the feeling they were on the lookout for a mole.

He stops, craning his neck. He can see the Trainer House from there, the green slope of its roof peeking between others against the sky that’s just starting to turn orange. He knows from consulting the reservation registry that a group of well-ranked former Indigo Conference participants agreed to meet there between today and tomorrow for some sparring rematches. Sounds like too inviting an occasion to be a coincidence.

“Guess we’ll have to improvise. We’re good at that, aren’t we?”

Pikachu gives an assentive nod, static sparkles crackling around his cheeks in anticipation as he frowns in the direction of the building as well. “Alright then,” says Ash, and quickens his steps, reaching for Charizard’s pokéball as he moves away from the crowd. Enough stalling. Time to get into action.

At nightfall they’re above the Trainer House, Charizard’s wings flapping slowly against the darkened sky. Below them Viridian City’s changed its look for the night, now a sea of streetlights and bright windows with shiny arteries for its main streets. They inch closer: the lights inside the building are on. Around it the sidewalk empties of the last few passerbys, dispersing as the stores and cafeterias turn the signs on their windows from open to closed and turn their lights off.

All three vans are still there. Their position conveniently places them away from any streetlights, shielding them in patches of shadow.

There’s movement near one of them. The doors slide open and out come four men, dressed in black from head to toe. Ash quickly turns to the next one and sure enough there’s more, moving swiftly in the direction of their target.

He adjusts the uniform’s beret over his head. Silently he directs Charizard towards the roof of the Trainer House, a rush of electricity running through his body as his heartbeat hastens.

The game’s on.

***

Misty leaves her motorbike behind the Trainer House and waits, her back to the wall, her eyes scouring the empty street.

The gun is a weight against her hip. For a second as she brushes her hand over the holster Delia Ketchum’s kind eyes pop into her mind, and her stomach twists, her lips pressing together into a thin line as a phantom of the normalcy and warmth she wandered into when she entered her house unexpectedly bubbles up in her thoughts. She pushes it away, deep down; and instead she thinks of Giovanni’s words, zeroing again on the unsubtle threat as his voice dropped the fake pleasantries.

 _Remember._ As if she could not.

She hears footsteps. Cautious, she scoots to the left and peeks her head around the corner: a group of four Rockets is approaching the building. There’s gotta be more of them elsewhere: the data mentioned the deployment of twelve agents. She lets them pass, then follows, close enough to remain within earshot of their movements but not enough to let herself be seen.

The four head for a window on the side of the building. The first forces it open and they slip inside, one after the other, their movements agile and precise. She goes in right after them, finding herself in a dark hallway. From the bottom floor come the muffled noises of a battle.

The floorboards creak under her foot. She stops dead in her tracks, holding her breath. There’s a moment of pause, then one of the grunts’ flashlights turns towards her.

“Identify yourself.”

Misty sighs. “Waterflower,” she answers, slowly raising her hands to show the man her empty palms. “Field agent, B-rank.”

“And you’re here because?”

“Boss’s orders.”

The man’s eyes narrow. She blinks hers, half-blinded by the light pointed directly in her face. “I wasn’t notified of these supposed orders.”

Misty bites the inside of her cheek. She allows herself just one instant of hesitation before she replies: “I’m not the mole, if that’s what you think.” A twitch of the man’s brow tells her he might indeed be aware as well. She decides to go out on a limb. “I’m here for him, actually. I have solid reasons to believe he might be attempting to infiltrate this operation as we speak.”

Her only solid reason is a hunch from looking at a bunch of data. But she tries her best to make her face unreadable and holds the grunt’s glance, hoping it’ll help to sell her half lie.

He raises one eyebrow. A gnarly scar cuts it in two, running down the side of his face. “Such as?”

“That’s confidential information.”

“Right. And I’m supposed to just take your word for it.”

Misty swallows. Her throat is dry. There’s only the faintest waver in her voice as she responds, though, she can’t afford more. “You can call the boss later to verify. Or you can keep wasting my time while the mole successfully infiltrates your operation, and then explain to the boss that you’re the reason he got away with it one more time. I can tell you he won’t be happy.”

Silence. For a handful of moments they look at each other, neither willing to concede; but she can see a crack mine the man’s expression as the doubt she planted takes root. She’s not the only member of the organization to know the feeling of seeing disapproval in Giovanni’s eyes.

He decides he doesn’t want the risk. “Whatever,” he says, lowering the flashlights and turning back to the others. “Let’s stick with the plan. Move it.”

They storm off. Misty lets out a breath she’d unknowingly been holding and follows them to the basement floor, keeping her distance still. She stops again behind a corner to await their next move: they’ve stopped as well, to the sides of a door leading to the arena where two trainers are engaged in a battle. Two of them are holding dart guns. The one who questioned her holds a radio to his ear, awaiting a signal. He nods his head slightly.

“Copy that,” he says. He hangs the radio to his belt and reaches for one of his pokéballs. “Weezing,” he calls, his voice drowned by the battle noises: “Smokescreen.”

They all move as one, bursting into the room as the toxic fumes engulf the two battlers and the audience. More grunts break in from all sides, attempting to round up the trainers at the center of the arena: Misty scans them from the door, looking for familiar features; but the lot of them are barely dark shapes among the smoke, eluding her as the commotion grows.

She hesitates a few moments, her hand resting on the pokéballs and the holster at her belt. Then slips inside.

***

Ash stumbles slightly in the darkness as he lets himself in through the window. He pauses for a second, listening to check that the noise didn’t alert someone. No one around.

He exchanges a glance with Pikachu and they split wordlessly, as they do usually. A grunt with a Pikachu would stand out. It’s easier if Pikachu follows him at a distance, sure to have his back if needed.

There’s battle noises coming from downstairs, but the first floor of the building is eerily quiet. He steals a glance into the lobby as he sneaks past it: for a moment he thinks it empty, the only movement that of the pages of a register open on the front desk, blown by the breeze from the door left ajar. Then he sees the hand poking from behind it, stretched motionlessly on the floor.

His eyes rapidly scan the room. No one in sight, so he abandons all cautions and rushes to the desk, kneeling behind it next to the unconscious form of the receptionist. He turns her over and presses two fingers to her throat, reassured when he feels the steady rhythm of her pulse. A lingering scent of sleep powder hangs in the air.

The woman rouses under his touch. Her eyes open by a crack, then wide as she makes out the black-clad man kneeling over her. She sucks in a breath to scream and Ash covers her mouth with his hand, as gently as he can.

“Shh,” he hushes her. “You’re safe. Promise! I’m on your side.”

He reaches into his pocket to pull out his badge and holds it in front of her eyes. “See? I’m not one of them. I’m here to help. Understand?”

She nods. Ash takes his hand back, cautious: she doesn’t scream, but she props herself up from the floor and hugs her knees close, curling up against the desk. “Who—who are you?”

“One of the good guys,” Ash assures her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I—don’t think,” the woman stammers. He gives her an encouraging nod.

“Good. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I—I’m not sure, I can’t— I didn’t have time to— there were four of them, I think, they came in through the door, I tried— I recognized the uniforms, I tried to reach for the phone to call the police but they— he—”

Her breath hitches, strangling her frantic words. Ash gently places his hands on her shoulders.

“Okay, listen. What’s your name?”

“A-Annie.”

“Annie, good. Listen to me. I’m here to help, alright? I’m not exactly the police, but I’m your next best bet.” He smirks, to which she reacts with a confused blink. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on yet, but I’m here to find out and stop it. You just stay hidden here.”

“Please—”

“You’re gonna be okay,” he promises. He pokes his head over the edge of the desk and grabs the phone, dragging it to the floor with them. “Here. Take this. If I’m not back in—” he glances at the wall, searching for a clock. “Ten minutes?, then call the police. Ask to speak with Officer Jenny and tell her Agent K told you to. They’ll be here before you have time to blink.”

He gives her his most determined smile. “I’ve got this,” he adds. He waits for her to give a small, watery nod, then stands and leaves her to sprint back to the hallway. Four through the front door, he mentally notes down as he hastens his steps towards the basement floor. He saw the other two groups approach the building from the sides, four each, so that makes at least twelve of them.

He can handle it.

The fumes of a smokescreen attack pour out of the door to the basement. Ash pulls the neck of his shirt over his mouth as a makeshift filter and presses his back to the wall, squinting through the smoke as he tries to assess the situation inside. Two trainers stand back to back at the center of the arena, surrounded by four of the Rockets. The rest of them have cornered three other trainers, or tried: one girl has sent out a Nidoqueen and k.o.’d two of the grunt’s pokémon in one single move. In the middle of the arena one of the two trainers’ Thyplosion fends off several Golbat with a flamethrower; but three Sandslash come at it from all sides, their claws slashing through its fur. Tranquilizer dart guns fire at the Nidoqueen.

The trainers are strong. But the grunts are too many, and armed. Ash watches for a few moments still, one hand already closed on one of his pokéballs. In other circumstances maybe he’d try to slip in unnoticed to follow them to their base; but he doesn’t know enough about the operation to judge that he wouldn’t be allowing the trainers and their pokémon to get hurt for nothing. He clenches his fists, barely holding himself back.

The Nidoqueen’s trainer attempts to shield the pokémon with her own body only to be slammed against the wall by a Hypno’s hyper beam. It’s enough. He springs into action without hesitating a moment longer:

“Staraptor! Use whirlwind to disperse this smoke!”

The bird pokémon materializes above the crowd’s heads, the flapping of its large wings clearing the center of the arena and blowing the smoke back into some of the grunt’s faces and forcing them to cover. Ash takes advantage of the last wisps still hanging in the air to blend in the commotion and keeps the brim of his beret lowered over his eyes: “Great. Now use aerial ace against that Hypno!”

Staraptor dives down at the opponent. Ash quickly reaches for another of his pokéballs while the attack lands.

“Ivysaur, your turn! Vine whip!”

One dart gun clatters to the ground as the grunt is incapacitated by the vines. There’s others, though, and at least two fire at Staraptor, which dodges to the side as it dives again to take down one of the Sandlash. A third gun aims as it rises back into the air. Ivysaur’s vines slap it out of the grunt’s hands one second too late.

Staraptor falls to the ground with a screech. Ash grits his teeth and calls it back into its pokéball, then ducks to avoid a Golbat swooping at his head. Pikachu leaps from a corner to come to his aid, his cheeks aglow with static: a thunderbolt explodes in the air, shooting sparks everywhere, and the Golbat plummets to the ground followed by several others, smoke trailing from their motionless forms.

“Thank you.” Ash stands back up and adjusts the brim of his beret, a glint in his eye as adrenaline rushes through him. “Let’s keep it up, huh? Use electroweb!”

Electricity gathers around Pikachu’s tail. Some of the trainers join, their strength rekindled by the unexpected backup:

“Typhlosion, use fire blast!”

“Vaporeon, aurora beam!”

“You too, Misdreavous! Use psybeam!”

For a second before the attacks collide Ash locks eyes with one of the Rockets, a woman, staring straight at him from the opposite side of the arena. Something on her face looks akin to recognition. But he loses sight of her as the moves land and erupt in a cloud of smoke, forcing him to lift an arm to shield his face from the blast.

When the smoke dissipates there’s few of the grunts’ pokémon left standing. But as he scans the room he sees one of the grunts kneel over the Nidoqueen trainer, still on the ground, and rip a backpack from her hands before taking off into the hallway.

Another quick glance tells him the other trainers can probably handle it from here. He calls Ivysaur back and runs after him.

The hallway is empty. He turns a corner, looking around: nothing still. He pauses at a crossroad, listening for footsteps.

From behind him come the unmistakable _ta-clack_ of a cocked gun.

***

Misty’s hand shakes only slightly, and only for a second, as she points the gun at the G-Man’s back. “Stop where you are,” she orders, a hasted breath betraying the tension in her voice.

He stops in that he doesn’t try to run away. But he raises his hands to show that they’re empty and turns his head slightly to steal a quick glance at her. “Huh. You’re mistaken, maybe? We’re on the same side here.”

“I don’t think so.” She studies him, a low rumble in her ears: he’s the same height as her, more or less. His back and his arms are lean but muscular under the black uniform, and a few uneven strands of dark hair fall out of his beret and onto his neck. Her finger tenses on the trigger, her throat drier than sandpaper when she swallows.

There’s a soft rustling at her left. “Tell your Pikachu to stop,” she urges. That seems to surprise him—for a blink his shoulder tense up. But he shrugs them then.

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Fine, I’ll tell him.” She keeps her eyes fixed on the G-Man, not turning. “Know what’s gonna happen if you hit me with an electric attack while I have your trainer at gunpoint, Pikachu? My muscles go stiff. My index finger contracts on the trigger, and he ends up with a bullet in his back before I even have the time to faint.”

The rustling stops. They stall, all three frozen in their position, and she tries fruitlessly to push herself into action, the barrel of the gun glinting in her line of sight. She could end it right here. There’s no way she’d miss from this close. Pikachu would likely hit her in retaliation, but it wouldn’t kill her, probably, and it wouldn’t matter anyway: the G-Man would already be dead or dying and she’d be done with it. And yet her finger remains frozen, the command refusing to extend to her muscles. The glint trembles.

“Ash Ketchum,” she says at last. “Born in Pallet Town. Former Champion of Kanto. Left the position to become a G-Man. Infiltrated and foiled multiple Team Rocket operations.”

In pause that follows she hears him draw a tense breath. “Sounds like a cool guy,” he says then.

There’s definitely a shakiness in his voice now, but something else as well—he sounds almost… amused? Thrilled? Her brow creases into a frown.

“Turn.”

He does, slowly. His face is the face she saw in the pictures, almost burned in her retinas from the time she spent staring at the pages of his file. The grin is missing, but his eyes have the same defiant look, observing her the way he might look at a challenge: she saw that same look in a couple videos she watched of him, facing an opponent on the other side of a pokémon arena. They have the warmth of Delia’s eyes, too, beyond the confrontational appearance. His jaw is lined by a hint of stubble, but beyond it he looks young. She’d guess him maybe a year or two younger than her if she didn’t know they’re the same age.

She wonders if she’ll remember it forever as clearly as she’s seeing it now, every detail. The face of someone she killed.

For a few moments they look at each other in silence. Then he quirks one eyebrow. “So?” he asks.

She shakes her head slightly. “So what?”

“You know who I am.” His voice goes more matter-of-fact as he drops the act and stops feigning cluelessness. “I don’t know who you are, but I know regular Rocket grunts don’t usually carry guns. Well, not _that_ kind at least. So, a Team Rocket agent who knows my name and what I do, and happens to have a gun to point in my face… I think you were looking for me for a reason, and I doubt it’s having a chat. Am I wrong?”

Misty swallows again, a vague lump in her throat. “You’re not.”

The G-Man holds her glance still. “So what are you waiting for?”

“I—”

Her palm is clammy under her glove. There’s no reason for her to be stalling: she should have shot him from the moment she recognized him in the basement arena. That’s all she has to do, that’s all Giovanni asked. And yet she still can’t get her hand to move, even as she feels Giovanni’s fingers tighten again around her throat, even as she thinks of the pictures in his open drawer.

“I might be wrong,” he says, “but I don’t think you actually want to do this, do you?”

“Shut up,” she snaps, a rising wave of anger shaking her voice at the foundations. He doesn’t flinch.

“We can both take a step back. Talk about it, yeah? Maybe there’s some other way.”

“Oh shut _up!_ ” Rage boils though her, and with it something that feels almost like desperation. “Don’t even try that!”

He gives a small shrug. “Try what?”

“That— _we can talk it out, please don’t shoot me_ movie speech! It’s not gonna work!”

“Well, I wasn’t gonna say _please,_ but it was worth a shot.” A hint of a smirk unbelievably flashes on his lips. “But well, since you still haven’t shot me, maybe there’s something else we _can_ talk about? You know, just to kill some time while you decide on what to do, if we’re gonna be here a while—”

Just in time she notices him slowly lowering one hand towards his pokéball belt as he attempts to distract her with his words. Quick, she lowers the gun and shoots the air inches from his fingers, stopping him in his tracks.

It’s a mistake. The moment the gun is no longer aimed at its trainer’s vitals Pikachu springs forward to tackle her, taking her by surprise enough to throw her off balance. She half-topples over, catching herself against the wall; and in the couple seconds it takes her to right herself he’s bolted away with Pikachu on his tail. She shoots after him, missing him by an inch. She runs after him as he disappears behind a corner, cursing under her breath.

The rush of her heartbeat fills her ears, carrying echoes of Giovanni’s voice.

She turns the corner in time to catch a glimpse of him: he leaps out of a window and a moment later there’s a flash of red, and a flapping of orange wings. His Charizard.

She jumps the windowsill after him. Her motorbike’s parked just a few steps away, and she runs for it, desperate not to let him get away.

She gives gas with her eyes turned to the sky. The sound of police sirens reaches her ears as she takes off.

***

Police cars surround the Trainer House as Charizard takes Ash and Pikachu back into the air, their sirens blaring. It did take longer than ten minutes, apparently. For a couple moments Ash scans the street below them, hoping to spot the runaway grunt; but he’s probably put half a mile between himself and them by now. He mutters a curse, chilly night air biting at the skin of his face.

He doesn’t want to stick around to be questioned as a witness and have his name attached to the case, especially now that he knows at least one person has been directly on his trail, so he directs Charizard away. It takes him a few seconds to register the sound of the engine below them.

He squints again at the street: a motorbike tails them, ridden by someone clad in black. He can’t be sure from up there that it’s the same Rocket agent that just held him at gunpoint, but he’d bet his G-Man badge it is.

“Ah, damn it,” he curses, but the adrenaline rush reignites, electrifying as ever. “Alright. Let’s lose her, Charizard.”

***

Misty tails the G-Man’s Charizard as it flies away from the Trainer House, engine roaring at full speed. Her wheels screech against the asphalt at a sudden turn.

Wind howls around her. She narrowly avoids colliding with a fire hydrant, her eyes glued to the strip of night sky between the rooftops: it’s not enough, flying’s too net an advantage. She’s losing him. Without stopping she grabs one of the pokéballs at her belt, releasing her Zubat.

“Quick, go after them! Try to slow them down!”

Zubat flings itself at Charizard like a projectile, targeting it with its supersonic. Charizard attempts to fend it off with a blast of fire; Zubat swiftly dodges aside. The sonic waves hit the dragon pokémon, making it stagger in the air. They’re closer now, she’s gaining ground. She closes in on them as Zubat avoids another blow, aided by its small size, and manages to hit Charizard from close range with another supersonic attack. The dragon sways again, nearly losing its rider.

It opts for an emergency landing on the flat roof of a warehouse. Right below them now, Misty abandons the motorbike and sprints towards the fire escape. Her footsteps clamor on the metal steps, loud as her heart.

She makes it to the roof just in time to see her Zubat drop against the concrete, hit by one of Pikachu’s electric attacks. The G-Man turns to look at her, stood next to Charizard at the opposite end.

“Damn,” he says, his eyebrows arching upwards. “You’re persistent.”

Misty catches her breath. She wishes she could scream it at him: what would happen to her, to her sisters, to their home, if she were to let him go. She can’t, of course, so instead she fumbles for her pokéballs while his Pikachu jumps protectively in front of him, electricity crackling around its cheeks.

“Zubat, return.” She hangs the pokéball back to her belt and lets a second one quickly fall into her palm. “Staryu!”

They’re even now, facing each other with their pokémon between them. She knows she’s only stalling further: battling him won’t accomplish what she’s there for. But her hand shakes again as her fingers hover over the holster, and she lowers it despite herself, balling it in a furious fist. The G-Man looks at her from across the roof, a glint in his eyes so similar to the eyes of the woman who welcomed a stranger into her house and offered her cookies and iced tea.

“Oh, a battle? As you wish, I’m down. Go, Pikachu, use quick attack!”

Pikachu springs ahead. She jumps on the counteroffensive, readily: “Staryu, avoid it and strike back with rapid spin!”

Both miss, Pikachu avoiding the collision with a swift leap to the side. Misty pumps her fist. “Don’t let it off the hook, Staryu, hit it with a double edge!”

“Pikachu, use quick attack again to dodge it, then thunderbolt!”

Staryu’s attack smashes against the concrete: in a blink Pikachu’s darted out of the way to land behind the water pokémon and then leaped into the air again, sparks engulfing its body. “Staryu,” Misty urges, a sharp breath drawn in her burning throat, “counterattack with your water gun, quick!”

Electricity and water collide mid-air, raising a blinding bout of sparks that forces her to shield her face with her arm and take a half step back, dangerously close to the edge of the roof. Staryu takes the brunt of it, weaker for its type disadvantage, and falls backwards at her feet while Pikachu lands nearly unscathed. It stands back up quick enough, though, weary but not defeated yet.

When she looks back up her eyes meet the G-Man’s. For a moment that feels frozen in time they look at each other, from the two sides of their makeshift arena.

( _Remember,_ Giovanni’s threat echoes once again in her head. _Everything you hold dear belongs to me._ )

“Staryu—”

“Pikachu,” he anticipates her, “finish it with volt tackle, now!”

Pikachu charges forward, golden electricity spread around it like an arrowhead. It’s staggeringly fast: Staryu’s attempt at dodging is futile, and the opponent crashes against its core at full speed, sending it flying.

Misty doesn’t have the material time to react. She barely even sees the pokémon being hurled at her; then it crashes into her body, throwing her off balance. She staggers backwards and suddenly under her foot there’s nothing.

Her pupils contract against her irises as she falls, her lips parting for a scream that doesn’t come.

Her fall’s broken by a row of garbage containers. There’s a burning pain in her side as breath’s pushed violently out of her lungs, and for a second she gapes at the night sky, eyes wide before a curtain falls over them. The last thing she registers before the world goes black is something that feels almost like relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I agonized quite a bit on this chapter and I'm still unhappy with a good half of it but oh well. This properly kicks the story into motion.
> 
> Sorry about Lance.


	3. III

Her senses come back to her in flashes.

Throbbing pain in her left side. Her fingers scraping hard plastic as breath struggles in her lungs; static behind her eyelids.

Noise: footsteps on clanging metal. The fire escape. Her eyes snap open.

The static clears as she blinks a few times. Sparse stars punctuate the strip of night sky between the buildings; her breath fogs faintly in the chilly air. Her hand reaches for where it hurts and comes back with a yelp as glass punctures her fingers through her glove. Groggily she lifts her head: the garbage containers softened her fall and stopped her from breaking her back or her skull against the asphalt, but she fell on top of a broken beer bottle and the glass slashed through her skin, stabbing her side right below her ribs. Her fingers hover shakily over the bleeding gash.

The footsteps are closer. She grits her teeth and props herself up on her elbow. She registers her Staryu, lying flat next to her but with a glow hanging into its core to reassure her that there’s life in it still. A breath held in her chest, she grabs the edge of the shard and after allowing herself only a second of hesitation tears it from her wound, barely holding back a scream as a flash of white-hot pain sears through her flesh. Blood and glass hit the plastic lid.

She presses a hand to her side and with the other fumbles with the pokéballs at her belt to call Staryu back, fighting the static lapping the edges of her vision again. She takes a breath then, and swings her legs over the edge of the garbage container, letting herself slide to the ground. Her knees nearly buckle over. She catches herself as the back alley wobbles in front of her eyes, more blood dripping through her fingers and onto the asphalt.

“Wait!”

The G-Man’s at the bottom of the fire escape. Misty draws her gun from the holster and aims it in his direction, her grasp shaky as blood sticks her glove to her skin.

“Stand back.”

He lifts his hands to show her his empty palms. “Okay, I just—are you hurt?”

His eyes turn to the growing stain on the side of her uniform. Misty takes a half step back.

“Don’t come any closer.”

“Okay,” he says again. His voice is startingly gentle. She frowns at his swaying shape, her breaths heaving in her chest. “I don’t want to hurt you. I didn’t mean to, I—let me help.”

Misty blinks. She’s aiming a gun in his face after she chased him halfway through Viridian to put a bullet in his skull. She could blow his brains out any second—she _should_ do it, she doesn’t know what’s keeping her finger from pulling the trigger still. And yet he stands looking at her with an air of genuine concern, making no effort to defend himself other than having his Pikachu crouched at his side. Her muscles strain, the gun impossibly heavy in her hand.

“Help...?”

He takes a careful step forward. She tries to steady her shaky aim.

“I said don’t come any closer.”

He stops. For a few seconds they look at each other, the air between them stretched taut. Shoot: she tries to will that small flick of her finger desperately, the back of her eyes burning with tears of pain and frustration. _Shoot_. Instead she lowers the gun. Instead she shakes her head, a furious huff of breath escaping her throat, and turns to flee.

Or she tries. Her legs hold her for a few steps, then fold, slamming her knees into the asphalt. Her uniform is soaked through under her palm. When she brings her hand in front of her eyes her glove is all red. Her vision swims, curtains closing in.

Footsteps. She props her hand to her knee and manages to heave herself back to her feet, grunting through gritted teeth. Turning, for a moment she makes out his silhouette, his lips moving as he walks closer; but she can’t hear his words. The rush of her heartbeat fills her ears as the curtains drop.

The last thing she registers is her knees hitting the ground again. Then there’s nothing.

_“Not now Misty, we’re busy.”_

_Daisy gathers her golden hair out of the way and puts it up in a ponytail. Misty pouts: “You always say that.”_

_“Yeah, because we are! Like, it’s not like being gym leaders is a vacation, you know? It’s a full time job.”_

_Misty kicks her legs in the water of the pool, watching her Staryu as it bobs around her. “You could just let me help. So you would all have less work.”_

_“You’re too young to be a gym leader. You’re, like, not even old enough to be officially a trainer yet.”_

_“I have a pokémon! And I’m already a better battler than you three.”_

_“Only because it decided to befriend you, for whatever reason. And I don’t know about that.”_

_Misty’s teeth sink into the inside of her cheek. It’s true: Staryu claimed her as she was playing at the beach, down by Cerulean Cape. It came out of the ocean and started following her around until she took it home. Violet said it probably felt bad for her seeing her all by herself. She kicks the back of her foot to the pool tiles, hurting herself a little. “But I am. You’re gonna see someday.”_

_Daisy doesn’t listen, already too absorbed by the task at hand to pay attention to her. Misty takes her legs out of the water and stands, taking her hands to her hips._

_“I’m gonna be the best Water pokémon trainer ever,” she promises, defiantly. For a moment she can almost see it, her entire brilliant future, laid down in front of her and perfectly within her reach. Water Pokémon Master Misty, the pride of Cerulean City: she loves the sound of it. She holds her chin up high._

_“Just you wait and see.”_

She comes to again slowly, then at once, air filling her lungs in a sudden gasp, eyes snapping open on a neon-lit ceiling she doesn’t recognize. She blinks, blinks again: her head’s heavy, clogged with fog, but a sense of indistinct urgency pushes her heart in her throat, her breath hastening as her instincts tell her to _run_ while her hazy mind still draws a blank.

“Welcome back.”

She recognizes the voice. The G-Man’s voice. Her memories snap back into place like flipping a switch.

Her eyes dart in that direction. He’s sitting a few feet from her, his Pikachu perched on his shoulder, and instinctively she recoils, only to be halted first by a jolt of pain in her side and next by a firm tug on her wrist. She cranks her neck back to inspect the latter: it’s handcuffed to the headboard of the bed. She yanks it in frustration, only managing to bruise herself.

“Calm down,” comes the G-Man’s voice again. “You’re safe. I promise.”

Her free hand investigates her wound, feeling the shape of bandages through her shirt. She reaches for her belt next, but her hand comes back empty: her pokéballs aren’t there and neither is her gun. A cold feeling of panic burrows in her stomach as it sets in that she’s immobilized and disarmed.

She looks around. She makes out what looks like storage shelves, crudely lit by neon tubes. Beyond them a couple kitchen appliances, a sink. A glimpse of a wall covered in paper clippings and pinned threads. It doesn’t look like a hospital room, for sure, nor a prison cell.

“W-where—?”

Her throat is dry and her voice catches halfway through, stumbling in a weak cough. The G-Man stands and leans forward and she recoils again, and another stab of pain shoots through her body, taking her breath from her chest as flashes of red blur the edges of her vision. “Take it easy,” he says. She hears water. “You lost a lot of blood. You were out cold for almost two hours, I was starting to worry I made a mistake by not taking you to the hospital.”

He’s holding a glass of water in front of her face when Misty’s eyes regain focus. “Here. Drink some, you’ll feel better.”

“I don’t want it,” she manages to croak. He raises one eyebrow, looking at her for a moment; then shrugs and sets the glass down on the nightstand.

“Fine.”

He sits down, backwards, his arms resting atop the back of the chair. He’s not wearing the Team Rocket uniform anymore: she registers the well defined muscles of his forearms below the sleeves of a t-shirt, and the lighter lines of a few scars marking his tan skin. His hair falls on the back of his neck now that it’s not tucked under a beret, in dire need of a haircut. From its spot on his shoulder Pikachu studies her with suspicion. She yanks the cuffs again.

“You tied me up.”

“You tried to kill me,” he reminds her. The pokémon’s cheeks crackle with a bout of sparkles. Misty’s eyes scan the room again, alert.

“Where am I?”

“Somewhere safe. Let’s just keep it at that for now.”

“What are you gonna do to me?”

His brow scrunches into a frown. “I’m not gonna _do_ anything to you,” he says, almost taken aback by her question like he didn’t drag her who the hell knows where while she was passed out and handcuff her to a bed. “I just wanna have a chat.”

She blinks. “A _chat?_ ”

“Right.” He stretches his back a bit, relaxing his posture. “If I showed up to the hospital with an unconscious Rocket grunt I’d have been expected to consign you to the police, you know? Didn’t wanna do that before we had a chance to talk things out.”

There’s a hint of a smile on his lips as he speaks, and Misty stares at him, slightly dumbfounded. “Don’t tell me you expect a thank you.”

He gives another shrug. “Would be nice, but nah. Just hoping to hear your side of things.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

He says nothing, just purses his lips in a “hmmm”, watching her. His brow furrows again in a pensive crease. He’s got surprisingly kind eyes, she finds herself noticing; it’s not just the resemblance to Delia’s. She’d expect to see anger in them, or at the very least guarded distrust, yet she doesn’t see either—only that challenging glimmer, and something akin to curiosity.

“That’s a grunt uniform,” he voices his thoughts at last. “Not of the lowest rank, but not a higher up either. I take you’re following someone else’s order, right?”

She turns her head to the wall, silent. He lets a few moments pass.

“Someone gave you the order to kill me. Was it one of Giovanni’s underlings?” Another pause. Misty clenches her jaw shut. “Don’t tell me it was Giovanni himself?”

His voice holds an almost gleeful note, so dissonant to her ears that she can’t keep her eyes from widening in disbelief. “That’d be pretty great, you know,” he continues, “if Giovanni personally wants me out of the way. It means I’m getting somewhere. He’s feeling threatened.”

“Don’t give yourself too much importance,” comes out of her lips before she can stop herself. “No one threatens him. You’re an annoyance, nothing more.”

“Aha! So he really did send you himself?”

She bites her tongue. The wound in her side throbs, more noticeable now that the initial rush of panic and adrenaline is starting to wear off, and she shifts a bit on the mattress to try and ease it, breathing in sharply through her teeth when her attempt only results in another stab of pain. “What did you do with my pokémon?” she asks, attempting to at least divert the conversation from the topic.

“Nothing. They’re fine,” he assures her. “I’ve healed both your Zubat and your Staryu.” He raises one hand and takes off one of the fingerless gloves he’s wearing to show her a bandage across his palm: “Zubat bit me, but we’re okay now. I got it to like me.”

She stares. “And you expect me to just take your word for it?”

“Well, no, but I can’t exactly give them back until I know that you won’t immediately try to kill me again, you know?”

She doesn’t really have a remark. Her head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, too light and too heavy at the same time. _You lost a lot of blood._ She closes her eyes a moment, trying to regain focus. “I can give you something for the pain too,” he says, and leans back from the chair to rummage into one of the shelves. “You look like you could use it. I should have something—”

“I don’t want it,” she cuts him off. He keeps searching.

“I could’ve sworn it was—oh, here it is.” He turns back towards her, a triumphant expression lingering on his face and a pill bottle in one hand. He tinkers with the cap, muttering something as it won’t come off; then finally leans over and places two pills next to the glass on the nightstand. “Here you go.”

“I said—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. In case you change your mind. Now, back to our—”

A beeping sound interrupts him. He pauses for a second, then grabs a pokégear from his belt and stands up abruptly, walking away from the bed to answer. “Agent K. I’m listening,” he says. He hunches around the device a bit, as if that could keep her from listening. She can still see his shoulders tense slightly in reaction to whatever the speaker on the other end says. “No, yeah. It’s... not the best time right now, I’m in a—”

He glances back at her, pursing his lips, then turns again with a small sigh. “Alright, hold on, just give me ten minutes. Five. Five minutes and I’ll be there.”

He hangs up and turns to look at her, his bottom lip caught pensively between his teeth for a moment. “Listen—I gotta go, I have a—aah, doesn’t matter, I gotta be somewhere. I’ll be back. It won’t be long, but there’s food and water in here and—”

He stops, his eyes falling on the handcuffs. He hesitates, a crease furrowing the center of his forehead; then walks back to the bed and rummages into his pocket to pull out a key.

“Pikapi,” says his Pikachu in an alarmed tone. The G-Man pulls his lips into a soft grin.

“Don’t worry.”

“What are you doing…?” she asks as he leans over to unlock the cuffs. He gives a shrug.

“I can’t leave you tied to a bed for who knows how long, can I? I mean what if you need to use the bathroom, or get hungry, or sick.”

He turns the key. Misty quickly evaluates her chances to succeed if she were to sit up and throw herself at him to try and finish what she started, but the pain and lightheadedness keep her: he’d probably overpower her in a second right now, not to even mention the pokémon. She rubs her wrist.

“I could try to kill you again.”

“Yeah.” He grins a little again, this time at her. “But I hope you won’t. I’ll be back, okay? Be careful if you get up, I had to patch up your wound, you don’t wanna rip the stitches and ruin all my work.”

With that he turns to leave, grabbing a jacket he’d left hanging on the back of a chair. He disappears from her view and there’s the noise of keys and a door creaking and slamming shut; a lock turning, muffled footsteps. Silence.

Misty stares in the direction he left. Slowly, bracing herself for the pain, she props herself up on her elbows and sits. A grunt escapes her clenched teeth as the room sways for a second, but it settles then, and she catches her breath, her hands clutching fistfuls of the sheet. She shifts her legs to the side of the bed, careful, and lifts her bloodstained shirt to inspect the wound. The gash left by the glass shard is covered in a bandage. She traces the gauze with her finger, the events of the last few hours crowding in her mind.

She can see more of the room now. It’s small, with no windows, the cement ceiling low enough that she could reach it with ease if she stood on the bed. Shelves stuffed with supplies line most of the walls. In a corner are a microwave on a table and a minifridge, and a cabinet over a sink; in another a toilet bowl and a shower, barely shrouded by a makeshift curtain. It looks like some sort of hideout. Her glance turns to the only wall free of shelves, the one that’s plastered in paper clippings and threads like the wall of some movie detective. She makes out the words _TEAM ROCKET_ on many of the clippings, and blurry pictures of red Rs on black vans and uniforms.

Her eyes follow the threads to the center of the wall. There above a question mark is the name _GIOVANNI._ Her stomach squeezes, a shiver running down her spine.

The glass of water on the nightstand beckons her glance. She tries to tear it away, but her throat feels like sandpaper when she swallows, and she only manages to resist a few more moments before reaching for the glass and downing the water in a gulp. The painkillers she leaves there.

She’s not sure what to do next.

She thinks again of Giovanni’s words. _I’m not asking. This is an order._ Thinks of the threat that followed, feeling again his hands grasp her throat, the cold metal of his rings.

Her hands tighten again on the bedsheet.

The keys turning in the handcuffs. A grin. _But I hope you won’t._

She swallows again, her nails digging through the sheet into her palms.

She tries to imagine going back to Giovanni and telling him she couldn’t do the job. The thought alone is enough to bring a bitter hint of laughter out of her throat: she doesn’t have to imagine, she knows what would happen. He might as well have spelled out “last chance”. She pictures him reaching into his desk’s drawer to lay her sisters’ photos in front of her eyes. His fingers drumming slowly over them, light catching on each of his rings. _You force me to do this_ , she can almost hear him say. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, tears burning at the back of them.

She bites the inside of her cheek until it hurts. Then holds her injured side and stands, grabbing onto the bedframe when her knees try to buckle. The room sways under her feet like the deck of a ship. She breathes, waiting for it to stop.

Her hand instinctively runs towards her belt, stopping as she remembers he took her pokémon and her gun.

Holding onto the wall, she limps to the door and tries to push it: locked, of course—she heard the keys turn. She turns to the shelves. Clothes, medical supplies, food—no weapons, at least that she can see; perhaps he had the foresight to get rid of them before the attempted hitwoman he hauled in woke up. Or perhaps he never had any. His file never mentioned him resorting to weapons, and she wouldn’t put it past him to be foolish enough to jump into organized crime operations with only a Pikachu. He was foolish enough to free her from the handcuffs, after all.

She stops to take a closer look at the clippings on the wall as she walks past it. He’s pieced together data on plenty of Team Rocket bases and operations. Some of it is wrong, but a lot isn’t. Above Giovanni’s name he’s taped a picture showing a glimpse of someone in an orange suit getting into a car. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end as she looks at it.

In the cabinet she finds a pocket knife. She tests the blade on her palm: it seems sharp enough.

_But I hope you won’t._

She stands in place for a bit, her stomach a twist in her belly. But in her mind she sees again Giovanni’s fingers, going _tap, tap, tap_ on his desk with betrayed impatience. She swallows a lump in her throat. Then stumbles back towards the door.

She won’t have time for hesitation, she knows, not with a pocket knife as her only weapon and barely able to stand on her feet while he’ll have his pokémon and physical strength on his side. She’ll need to be quick. She can’t allow herself to falter again.

She presses her back to the wall, the knife firmly grasped in one hand. She waits.

There’s a clock on the wall across from her, and she counts two hours, then two and half. At times the room wobbles again, losing color at the edges. The pain in her side has settled into a pulsating ache, but it’s constant and her body keeps wanting to fold itself around it, exhausted. She forces herself to stand still, her knuckles white around the grip of the knife.

It’s been almost three hours when she hears the key in the lock. She draws a shaky breath; then takes her back off the wall and readies herself, bending her knees slightly.

_I hope you won’t,_ bubbles up in her mind again. She pushes against it, holding onto the thought of her sisters.

She throws herself at him the moment the door opens. He’s heavier than her, but not exceptionally so, and the surprise is enough to throw him off his balance. She has time to see his eyes widen, almost in slow motion, then they both collapse to the ground. Pain rips through her body; but he exhales in an _oof_ as his back hits the floor, stunned for a brief moment, and she knows this is her one chance.

She locks her knees around his hips. The hand with the knife at his throat.

“Pikapi—”

But “Wait, Pikachu,” he groans. His fingers find her wrist and block it, but not with enough force that she couldn’t push against him and attempt to plunge the blade anyway. And yet again she’s frozen, like in the Trainer House, like in the back alley. The blade scrapes his skin and he’s making no attempt to fight back beyond flimsily holding her wrist, and yet—

He looks at her, her hair falling onto his face. Misty’s hand shakes. She sees every detail of his eyes, brown and strangely calm.

She rolls away from him. The knife clatters against the floor. Her vision goes dark for a second and she holds desperately onto her consciousness as she lies on her back, her breath coming in gasps. Her hand runs to her side and comes away wet.

“Damn, you’re bleeding,” he says. She hears the key turn again in the lock, then he’s hoovering over her and she recoils again, propping her elbow against the floor in an attempt to sit.

“Stop—”

“Let me take a look. You probably popped your stitches, I told you—”

“Stop—helping me!”

“Stop bleeding out on my floor then,” he snaps, exasperated. He leans closer and without further ceremony places an arm around her back and lifts her to her feet. She’s forced to lean against him as her legs fold under her weight, refusing to hold her any further.

He takes her back to the bed and sits her on the mattress. Pikachu glares at her from the floor, cheeks crackling with static. The G-Man grabs a first aid kit from one of the shelves and drops it next to her with a small sigh.

“Now just let me—”

“I can take care of it myself,” she stops him. “I don’t need your help.”

He shows her his palms. “Fine. Take care of it yourself.”

It’s not the first time she’s had to tend to her own wounds. Going to the emergency room is usually the last option: people there tend to ask questions, especially if you show up too frequently and with suspicious injuries. He watches her tuck the hem of her shirt under her chin and undo the blood-soaked bandage. She tries her hardest not to flinch as she douses the wound in disinfectant and cuts away the ripped stitches, but her fingers shake, unsteady, her palms clammy with sweat.

“I could do it,” he proposes. She holds back a grimace.

“No.”

She mutters a curse under her breath. The gash isn’t too deep, but it’s jagged and almost the length of her hand and it won’t stop bleeding, and it doesn’t help that he won’t shut the hell up.

“I’m pretty good at it. I’ve had to patch myself up a few times, happens on the job sometimes—”

_“No_ , damn it!”

The needle almost slips from her fingers. She grits her teeth and manages to stick it through her flesh once, a sharp intake of breath sucked into her throat. Twice. Sweat drips into her eyes and she wipes at it with her forearm. Her hands shake harder. She tries again. Stops.

“...Fine.”

The G-Man raises his eyebrows. “See, wasn’t that hard.”

He takes the needle to finish the job. “You know,” he says as she flinches, “this’d be a lot less unpleasant if you’d taken those painkillers I left you.”

She scoffs. “Why would I trust them?”

“Okay, one, you’re the one who wants me dead, not the other way around.” The needle stabs her just a little harder. “And two, why would I go the trouble of stitching you up and stopping you from bleeding to death just to poison you?”

He cuts the thread and covers the wound with a fresh bandage. “Here. Done.”

Misty scoots away from him. She pulls her feet over the mattress and draws her knees to her chest, curling up around them a bit.

“Why are you doing this?”

“You were taking forever. There would have been blood all over my bed by the time you’d be done,” he says with a shrug, gathering the supplies back into the first aid kit. Misty glares at him.

“Why are you helping me? I just tried to kill you. Twice.”

He closes the box and looks up at her. “I’m not dead, am I?” he says, and a hint of a grin pulls at his lips again. “You hesitated. Several times.”

“Why did you just—lie there? Why didn’t you stop me?”

“I wanted to see if you’d stop by yourself.”

“That’s stupid. What if I didn’t?”

“I’d be dead, I guess.” Another shrug. “But I was right, wasn’t I? You stopped.”

He stands. He tosses the bloody bandages in a bin and walks to the sink to wash his hands, then opens the cabinet and stares at its contents a couple moments. He pulls out a pack of bread snacks and rips it open. “Are you hungry?” he asks, holding it vaguely in her direction.

Misty blinks. Yes—but she turns away and hugs her knees closer. “No.”

“Well I am.” He stuffs a whole snack into his mouth and offers one to Pikachu, walking back towards the bed. “You _f_ ure?” he asks with his mouth full as he sits on the chair.

Misty’s stomach grumbles. She keeps her eyes on the wall.

“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.”

She hears more crinkling and chewing. “So,” he says after a couple moments, “I think we started on the wrong foot, huh? I’m Ash, though you already know. And this is Pikachu.”

“I know.”

“I don’t suppose you’re gonna tell me your name, huh?”

Misty bites down on her lip and remains in silence. He lets a few seconds pass.

“Alright. So, umm.” He purses his lips, thoughtful. “Have you done this before?”

She shoots him a look. “Done what, failed so spectacularly that I got myself trapped who knows where by my own target? No, that’s a first.”

“Killed someone.”

He locks his glance into hers, more serious now. She turns away again. “Of course.”

“How many times?”

“Countless.”

“Right. So what makes this one time different? Why am I not dead?”

She scoffs. “Because you threw me from a roof, maybe?”

“That was an accident,” he argues. “And I meant before that. Didn’t you hesitate long enough for me to get away, then follow me just to hesitate _again?_ Did I imagine all of that?”

“Yeah. Get your head checked.”

“And just now? You know, when you had a knife to my throat and you just… let me go?”

Misty’s fingers dig into the fabric of her uniform. “I’d never… killed someone who didn’t try to fight back and just lay there to find out if I would kill them for real. It threw me off. That’s it.”

“Okay.” He pauses and for a short bit there’s silence. Then he sticks the packet of snacks under her nose. “You sure you don’t want one?”

She stares at the snacks, then at him. “What are you trying to accomplish with this—good cop act? Do you think I’m gonna tell you something… for what? Why would I do that? I tried to kill you and I work for Team Rocket. You’re still gonna arrest me in the end no matter what I say.”

“I can’t arrest you, I’m not a cop,” he says. He takes the packet back to his lap and fishes another snack out, absentmindedly biting into it. “If I were to consign you to the actual cops, though, right now you’d be facing a charge for attempted murder of a government official. Oh, and possibly _countless_ murder charges, if what you just said is true.” She doesn’t miss the slight sneer in his tone. “But maybe there’s something you can tell me that could help your case. Plus, you know, technically I’m above the police. I could even decide not to report anything, if I had a good reason to.”

“Are you proposing exchanging information for my freedom?”

“I’m proposing you think about what I just told you.”

Misty look straight at him. “What if instead _I_ told the police that someone who in his own words isn’t a cop held me a prisoner somewhere? Would that someone face a charge for kidnapping, or are you _above that_ as well?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Okay. Fair. I can put those handcuffs back on you and take you to the police station right away if you want. Or,” and his voice softens a little, “you can stay here only until you’ll feel a little more lucid. Get some sleep, you know, let your body recover from the blood loss. And who knows, maybe in that time you’ll think of something you want to tell me. Or maybe not, but at least you’ll have had a couple days to rest and get back in shape before you face prison time.”

Misty blinks. Something stirs faintly deep inside her, like an atrophied muscle experiencing the smallest twinge of sensation, long unaccustomed to receiving kindness. She tries to bury it again and shakes her head.

“Why are you doing this?”

The G-Man shrugs. “Well, I feel bad for accidentally letting you fall off that roof. But also because I have a feeling it might be worth it,” he says. He places what’s left of the snacks next to her. “Come on, eat something, then rest. You look like death. I’ll be off doing some work. C’mon, Pikachu.”

He stands and grabs his jacket, Pikachu following him. Misty watches him leave. She listens to his keys turn in the lock, again.

Her glance falls on the floor at her feet. She desperately tries to see an out of this and comes up with none: even if he let her walk free she’d have nowhere to go. Her only choice would be to try again or go back to Giovanni and face the consequences of her failure. Her eyes sting, following the trail of blood splatters to the door. She doesn’t cry, though—she hasn’t really cried in years.

She breathes out in a sigh and takes one of the snacks from the packet. She chews slowly, feeling a surge of relief as her stomach stops growling; but immediately after she feels nauseous. She pushes the rest aside.

Drained and hollow, she lies down on her uninjured side and sniffles against the pillow. She doesn’t expect to fall asleep, but the exhaustion and soreness of her body eventually get the best of her, even as Giovanni’s voice echoes in her head again, accompanying her like claws scratching at the back of her mind as she drifts off into sleep. Thankfully she doesn’t dream.

The G-Man isn’t there when she wakes up. There’s a t-shirt folded on the pillow next to her face, though, and on top of it a note:

_IT’LL PROBABLY BE A BIT BIG FOR YOU BUT AT LEAST THERE’S NO BLOOD ON IT. EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT IF YOU GET HUNGRY_

He wrote in all caps, in a childish handwriting that matches his bafflingly upbeat attitude. He’s cleaned her blood from the floor, too. A glance towards the clock tells her she’s slept for a good few hours.

She feels a bit better, her mind a little clearer. She stands, carefully holding her side; hesitates for a minute. Then swallows one of the painkillers and limps through the room. She closes the shower curtain tightly behind herself and takes off her bloodied uniform, and takes a quick shower, mindful not to get her bandages wet. The water turns a rusty color at her feet.

She puts back on the lower half of her uniform and the clean t-shirt, and combs through her hair with her fingers. She finds an elastic on one of the shelves and pulls it into a ponytail. That’s better; she feels a little more like a human being.

She takes a more careful look around the room, inspecting the contents of the shelves. Team Rocket uniforms, of various ranks. Tech: tracking devices, microphones, goggles. More practical stuff, bundles of rope, flashlights. Food for both pokémon and humans. Medical supplies. A small safe on a bottom shelf. No weapons anywhere, just as she first thought. Carelessly left on the table near the microwave she finds a tablet, but it asks for a password when she tries to unlock the screen.

The detective wall catches her attention again. She stops in front of it, reading some of the clippings. Her eyes fall on some newspaper articles pinned in a corner.

_ELITE FOUR MEMBER AND EX-CHAMPION DEAD IN VAN CRASH_

_NO FOUL PLAY INVOLVED IN FATAL VAN CRASH, SAYS OFFICER JENNY_

Next to them a few words scribbled on a post-it: _blackthorn city officer jenny – implicated ?_

She frowns slightly at the dates. May of 2005. Shortly before he retired from the position of Kanto Champion and disappeared from the public eye.

She runs her eyes over the wall, taking in glimpses of newspaper titles and notes.

_TWO VICTIMS IN TRAGIC ROBBERY ATTEMPT – POLICE SUSPECTS TEAM ROCKET INVOLVEMENT_

_EX TEAM ROCKET MEMBER TURNED INFORMER FOUND DEAD IN UNCLEAR CIRCUMSTANCES_

_celadon city game corner – hiding something ? needs looking into_

Once again she reaches the center of the maze of threads and clues, where he wrote Giovanni’s name. She scans the notes around it, looking for a mention of the Viridian City gym, but she finds none. She shakes her head slightly, her frown deeper. _What an idiot._ So close and yet so far.

Behind her there’s the noise of the keys in the lock. The G-Man walks in, closing the door behind himself. It must be raining: he takes his jacket off and wrings water off it, and at his feet Pikachu shakes itself, spraying droplets everywhere. His glance turns to her.

“’Morning,” he greets her. “Well, evening, actually, but same thing. No knives pointed at my throat this time, we’re making progress.”

Misty says nothing. He tosses the jacket on the back of the chair and grabs an apple from the table. “Feeling better?”

She looks at him instead of answering, her brow drawn into a frown still. “Why do you do this?” she asks after a couple moment.

“Huh?” He blinks, taking a bite from the apple. “Haven’t we gone over this already?”

“No, I mean… this.” She nods her head towards the wall. “Your job. Why do you risk your life doing this?”

He chews down on the bite, slowly, and for a short pause he seems to seriously reflect on her question. Then shrugs, the corners of his lips curling into a grin. “I like to think that the good guys can win.”

“The good guys?” She stares at him, shaking her head a little. “Do you think this is a movie?”

“I think there are good guys in real life,” he says.

“Yeah, and they die!” she snaps. His nonchalance infuriates her. “It’s not like—like in the movies, where… the criminals are a bunch of idiots with an honor code, the good guys always win, and the bad guys go to jail forever! You’re not the first to oppose Team Rocket, do you know what happened to the others? They’re dead or in hiding. None of them changed anything.”

She realizes she’s tightened her fists hard enough to shake. She forces herself to let go. The G-Man holds her glance, the grin gone from his face.

“I know that very well, trust me,” he says, a somber edge in his eyes.

Misty finds nothing to retort. For a bit they stand in silence, looking at each other from across the room.

“So,” the G-Man says then, “why do _you_ do this?”

“Huh?”

“Your job,” he parrots her. Pikachu climbs on his shoulder and he lets it have the rest of the apple. “Maybe it’s just me, but you don’t sound like you like Team Rocket very much. So why do you work for it?”

Misty’s eyes skitter to the floor. He waits for a few moments before he speaks again.

“You know,” he says, his voice gentler, “I could help you get out, if you want to.”

She can’t help but laugh bitterly, still not looking up at him. Of course—as if she wouldn’t have already, if it were as easy as wanting to. “You don’t know anything.”

“Well, I’m listening.”

She wants to tell him that he sounds awfully naive. That he doesn’t seem to truly realize how ruthless the organization is, how far their bloody footprints spread. But instead she just keeps her eyes on the floor at her feet, her lips pressed in a thin line, her nails digging again into her palms.

Pikachu jumps down from its trainer’s shoulder and comes towards her. She steps back abruptly, wincing when the sudden movement sends a new jolt of pain through her wound.

“Don’t worry,” the G-Man reassures her. “He’s friendly, when people aren’t trying to kill me.”

The pokémon sniffs at her suspiciously as she stands frozen. It seems to decide she’s not a threat, at least right now, and carefully she crouches a little and offers one hand for it to sniff at well. When she glances up she catches a smile on the G-Man’s face.

“How about we make a deal,” he says. “You tell me something about yourself. And I give a real answer to your question.”

Misty takes her hand back, quickly shutting down the small opening she’d inadvertently let slip in the walls around herself. “I’ve got nothing to tell you. And I don’t make deals.”

The one that’s already chaining her is enough. He doesn’t seem fazed.

“Okay. Call it something else if you want. Think about it for a bit, though. Doesn’t even have to be something to do with Team Rocket. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

He walks past her and stands on the tip of his toes to grab a bundle from the top of one of the shelves. A sleeping bag. “I haven’t slept in two days. You know, last night I was kinda busy trying not to get killed and then trying not to let you bleed to death and all that.”

“Where are you going?” slips from her lips as she watches him tuck the sleeping bag under his arm and grab his jacket again. He flashes a crooked grin at her.

“Somewhere else. I might be stupid enough to let someone hold a knife to my throat, as you nicely put it, but even I can tell that _sleeping_ in the same room as my would-be assassin might not be the best idea.”

For the briefest moment something in her wants to tell him that he doesn’t need to take himself back outside under the rain. That he can trust her not to try anything for a few hours. But he wouldn’t, of course, and he’d be right—she doesn’t trust herself not to, either. Yet if just for an inexplicable blink the impulse felt genuine.

“Think about what I said,” he tells her, turning to leave again with Pikachu back at his shadow. Misty watches him go, her confused emotions caught in her throat.

He’s back a few hours later. He drops her a greeting, then goes about his morning as if she wasn’t there, or as if he was used to her presence. “Want some?” he asks, heating up some instant coffee in the microwave. “I hate this stuff, it’s bitter, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t help in the morning.”

“I’m good,” she answers. She tracks his movements around the room for a bit still, biting down on her lip.

“I used to be a trainer,” she says at last. He turns, a quirked eyebrow above his coffee mug. “Before I joined Team Rocket, I mean. That Staryu was my starter.”

“It did seem like an unusual pokémon for a Rocket,” he nods. “I don’t imagine you also want to tell me how you went from trainer to hitwoman, right?”

“Right.” She looks at him. “Your turn now. You said you’d answer my question if I told you something about myself and I did.”

“Alright.” He lets out a sigh, then walks up to her and sits down on the opposite end of the bed. She wasn’t expecting him to get this comfortable, and she scoots away with a slight jump. Pikachu climbs next to him. “Why I’m doing this job, huh?”

“Yeah.”

He takes a sip of coffee, his glance turning pensively towards nothing in particular. A shadow clouds his eyes. “You know Lance, the ex Kanto Champion?”

Of course. His death made quite a sensation, too. She draws her brow in a slight frown, remembering the newspaper clippings on the wall. “You knew him?”

“I got my Champion title beating him,” he points out. “But I knew him before that too. I met him a few times during my trainer journey.” He pauses for a moment and takes a long breath, in and out, like he’s organizing his thoughts. “One of those times was in Johto, at the Lake of Rage near Mahogany Town. That’s when I learned he wasn’t just the Kanto Champion. He was there to investigate a Team Rocket operation.”

Misty nods her head. “He was a G-Man as well.”

He throws her a sideways glance. “Oh, you know? Well, yeah, he was. Anyway, I was hardly twelve back then, so he tried to keep me and my friend from getting involved, though we kinda did anyway. In the end we parted ways and I didn’t think much of the whole thing for a while. I was way more interested in battling. But well, I kept running into Team Rocket during my travels, over and again. Some of them seemed like innocuous buffoons. But some of them…”

His shoulder tense just slightly, as if in a shudder. “Some of them weren’t,” he concludes, tilting his head back to down the rest of his coffee. “I did manage to stop some of their schemes, even back then. But it started to feel… frustrating, you know? They kept popping up everywhere, far from Johto and Kanto too, and eventually, well, I started to feel like something needed to be done to stop them once and for all.”

She doesn’t notice herself leaning a little closer to listen. He goes on: “So when I met Lance again at the League I asked him about his work. He didn’t want to talk about it at first. He tried to discourage me from looking more into it. But well, I guess I can be very persistent.” A shadow of a smirk tugs at his lips, without extending to his eyes. “He ended up taking me in as a trainee. We worked together for about a year. And then…”

His voice trails off. Misty swallows, feeling a lump in her throat.

“Then Lance died, right?”

He looks at her. For the first time she sees a harshness in his eyes. “Tell me. Did you have something to do with it?”

“No,” she answers in earnest. He studies her expression, then goes “hm” and turns away again, his hand too tight around the empty mug.

“His death was ruled an accident, but I never bought it. And after that… I knew that what I had been doing until then wasn’t enough. So I left my position as the Champion, it was taking up too much of my time and distracting me from this job. And well, this has been my life since. Does this answer your question?”

Kinda, but not quite. She purses her lips. “So Lance had been working on this… since you were twelve, at least. And you yourself have been at it for three years. And Team Rocket is still out there and strong as ever. Why even go on?”

He shrugs. “I told you. I like to think the good guys can win.”

His posture has shifted, slipping back into his inexplicably nonchalant disposition. Misty stares dumbfounded at him.

“How can you still think that after—even your own mentor paid with his life for opposing Team Rocket?”

“Maybe I’m just an optimist like that,” he smirks. He stands and goes to rinse the coffee mug under the sink. “Lance thought like you sometimes,” he says after a few moments, his back turned on her. “Not out loud, usually, but I could tell from his tone or the look in his eyes, especially towards the end. He was starting to feel like it was all pointless.”

“But you don’t,” Misty remarks. He turns.

“The other night, at the Trainer House. If I hadn’t intervened, the Rockets might have gotten away with all of the trainers’ pokémon. Maybe some of them would have been hurt or worse. It didn’t go as well as I hoped, one of them still got away. But I made things a bit better by being there. It doesn’t feel pointless to me.”

She lets out a scoffing breath. “So is that your plan? Just… be there, continue to foil as many Team Rocket operations as you can, even if it doesn’t get you anywhere? For how long?”

“As long as it’s necessary,” he answers unperturbed. He turns away again then, and directs his attention to something on the screen of his tablet, leaving her to reflect on his words. Misty’s brow creases as she watches him, the strange walking contradiction he is.

Giovanni’s voice whispers again at her ear. _I do expect results._ She lowers her eyes abruptly, her stomach squeezing shut.

There’s only one way this can end, she tries to remind herself.

The G-Man points out something on the screen to Pikachu. They share a glance, their eyes on the exact same frequency as they glimmer with determination. Misty feels like she could hurl.

The next day he’s stuck some polaroids to the wall. They show a square barn, rickety looking, surrounded by empty land. She doesn’t recognize it.

“Where’s that?” she asks. He raises his eyebrows at her interest.

“Just outside Viridian.”

“What do you have pictures of it for?”

He purses his lips for a second like he’s deciding whether to give her an answer. He seems to conclude that there’s nothing she could do with the information while stuck there. “Got word from one of my sources that Team Rocket is using it to store stolen goods. I’ve been keeping an eye on it for the past couple days.”

Misty frowns slightly at the photos. The place is completely unfamiliar, but she’s far from in the known about all of the organization’s bases. She tries to remember if she saw any references to it in the files Matori sent her and comes up short. Something gnaws at the back of her mind.

“Your sources,” she asks. “Who are they?”

The G-Man’s eyebrows shoot up a little again. “You sure ask a lot of questions for someone who won’t answer any,” he says. “I told you, I’ve encountered a lot of Rockets during my travels. With some of them, well, we kinda reached a weird sort of camaraderie eventually. And with some others…” he scratches the back of his neck, in a brief hesitation. “I managed to get some leverage over them.”

She eyes him. “Is that what you’re trying to do with me?”

“Right now I’m just trying to let you get better. And maybe get to know you a little.”

She lets out a small sigh and turns back to the polaroids on the wall. “Do you trust them?”

“Some less than others.”

“And the ones you got this information from?”

He’s quiet for a telling moment. “Not quite,” he finally says. “But I’m going to find out soon. I plan to check out the place tonight.”

The uneasy feeling intensifies. A tip from someone he doesn’t trust, directing him to an isolated area that she hasn’t heard of before. It’s got the marks of a set-up. Some part of her aches to say it out loud, but she keeps her mouth shut, her nails pressing into her palm in a concealed fist.

“What if something happens to you?” she asks instead. “Am I just going to starve to death and rot in here?”

“Gee, no need to put so much faith in my abilities,” he comments with sarcasm. “But I have arrangements for Officer Jenny to find this place, should something happen to me. There’s a lot of information here that I wouldn’t want to go to waste. It probably won’t take more than a couple days and there’s enough food here to last you for weeks, so you’re good.” He pauses. “Well, of course you’d have to explain to her why you’re here. But I guess I won’t be around to testify against you if you leave out something.”

“And my pokémon?”

“There’s a safe over there.” He nods his head towards the shelves. “Officer Jenny will have the combination. Your pokéballs are in there.”

Misty says nothing. Her nails dig into her palm harder.

Part of her yells at her to warn him of her gut feeling, and her heart thunders, drowning out the sound of him walking off to get something from one of the shelves. But the rest of her feels a sudden opening of hope, cruel and terrible.

If someone else does it she won’t have to.

The thought aches more than it’s reasonable. But not as much as the alternative. Not as devastatingly as the thought of seeing the Cerulean gym burned to the ground, her sisters’ faces in black and white on the newspapers’ front pages.

So she bites her tongue and keeps quiet, hoping to be wrong and not to be at once. She watches him prepare for his mission with a weight on her chest and the feeling of the ground about to open under her feet and swallow her whole.

Around sundown he grabs one of his Team Rocket uniforms. He rips his t-shirt off carelessly like she isn’t there, and she turns away abruptly, an inexplicable rush of heat in her face. She still manages to notice more scars crossing over his shoulders and back.

“I’m right here,” she reminds him. He pulls the uniform shirt over his head.

“Sorry. Not used to having company.”

He cinches his pokéball belt around his waist and tucks his hair under a beret. In the black uniform with his eyes shadowed by the brim he looks different, more serious and more like the stranger she faced across a makeshift battlefield on the roof. She wishes it made things easier, but not really, and he throws a wrench in the illusion when he lifts his head and smirks in her direction.

“Not gonna wish me good luck?”

She looks away again, a lump in her throat. “No.”

“Alright.” There’s only the slightest hint of disappointment in his voice. “Come, Pikachu. Let’s go.”

The pokémon climbs on his shoulder and they head off. A “ _wait”_ catches in her throat as he steps out of the door, without reaching her lips. She listens to the keys turn.

Alone she lowers her face in her hands. She presses a breath that’s almost a sob into her palms, her eyes burning.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers to the empty room.

***

Charizard takes flight against the darkening sky, soaring over Viridian’s green rooftops. The city below is beginning to shift into the sea of light that it becomes at night, windows and streetlights twinkling on one after another.

As they leave behind the hideout and head west Ash’s brow is in a frown, his thoughts not as focused on the mission at hand as they would be usually. The Rocket agent he tried to help has him distracted. Lance would probably give him a good scolding: he wasn’t harsh hearted, but he was firm and embittered and didn’t believe quite as much in trying to find the good in people. He definitely wouldn’t have approved of him bringing an attempted hitwoman in his quarters, and even less of telling her personal or sensitive info. And perhaps he wouldn’t have been entirely wrong—it wouldn’t be the first time that being too willing to give people a chance got him his ass handed to him for his trouble. He hasn’t learned his lesson, he guesses.

But there’s something about her that has him a mix of intrigued and worried. A flicker of something he saw when she failed to shoot him; when she rolled away from him after holding the knife to his throat. When her voice and the lines of her face went almost soft while he talked about Lance.

Something he feels it’s worth trying to reach.

He tries to set the thought aside for now and focus on the mission. Below them the condos and office complexes made room for the sparser buildings of the outskirts. He took the tip with a grain of salt: he never came close to trusting those two, Cassidy and… Biff? Buzz?, his name is always on the tip of his tongue for some reason. He’s about a hundred percent sure they hate his guts exactly as much as the first time he kicked their asses ten years ago, when they first ran into each other. But they volunteered information as exchange currency after he uncovered their most recent activity, a money laundering scheme masquerading as a pokémon pension.

The fact that they appeared to be more loyal to their earnings than to Giovanni made them seem valuable assets. And they _have_ given him useful info before, though they’ve also attempted to throw him off the scent a few times.

He didn’t report the pension. He wouldn’t have been lenient if someone was being hurt, but money laundering in itself is relatively harmless as far as Team Rocket’s activities go, after all. In exchange for that he gets to show up and ask questions.

But Cassidy getting in touch out of the blue to offer information was unusual. He proceeded with caution, surveilling the area for the past couple days in between returning to his hideout and its unwilling occupant. He did see activity around it—black vans parked nearby, darkened windows rolled up.

The buildings below made way for open countryside. He lowers a pair of night vision goggles over his eyes and directs Charizard ahead.

They’re above the barn in a few minutes. The place is silent, all lights off. No black vans in sight.

He breathes in.

“Ready?” he asks Pikachu in a whisper. The pokémon gives a determined nod.

They land in a patch of trees. Ash calls Charizard back and swiftly approaches the building. He reminds himself to be careful now that he knows there’s a clear target on his back; but his mind’s still not in it quite fully. The Rocket agent keeps trying to slip between his thoughts.

With his back pressed against a wall he waits, listening. The place is dead silent. He lets a few more seconds pass for good measure, then lets himself in through a broken window.

His steps echo in the empty barn.

( _I think there are good guys in real life,_ he told her, fully believing it.)

He expected to find rows of shelves and crates stocked full of stolen stuff, like in the warehouse; but through the green tint of the goggles he sees only bare walls and junk. He stops, his frown drawing deeper. As he looks around it only becomes more obvious that the place hasn’t been used in a while: a layer of grime and dust coats everything. But there’s a few cans and bottles abandoned in a corner, the remains of a fire. An uneasy feeling creeps up his stomach.

Behind him there’s the sound of footsteps.

( _Yeah, and they die._ )

“Prepare for trouble,” a familiar voice taunts. Ash spins on his heels. Cassidy stands between him and the window, two people at her sides. One’s her partner—Butch, Ash suddenly remembers. The other is a grunt, tall and square-shouldered, a gnarly scar running down the side of his face. There’s something vaguely familiar about him, but he can’t place it on the spot.

They don’t finish the motto. That single line hangs in the air with a menacing weight.

“What the—?”

“You kept us waiting,” the woman laments, her arms crossed across her chest. “But it was worth it. You fell straight into our trap.”

“Yeah, it was about time we said enough to your meddling,” Butch adds. He nods his head towards the grunt. “And thanks to out friend here we now know the boss has a bounty on your head. Two birds with one stone, we get rid of your nosy ass and make a fortune for it.”

Not overly impressed, Ash raises one eyebrow. “And your friend is…?”

“Things didn’t go as smoothly as you’d have liked during your latest effort, did they?” says Cassidy. “You let someone get away.”

Ash’s eyes turn to the grunt and suddenly it clicks into place where he’s seen him before: at the Trainer House, the one who managed to grab the Nidoran trainer’s backpack and run away. The dots connect in his head. The hitwoman was there with the rest of the Rockets. If she knew to look for him the others might have as well.

Fine. So someone who knows that Giovanni wants him gone and possibly knows his identity managed to get away, and teamed up with Butch and Cassidy of all people. It’s still not what he would call a particularly concerning situation, and he breathes out in a hint of a scoffing laugh, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from curling into a smirk.

“Right. Just a quick question, what makes you think I’m not gonna wipe the floor with all three of you?”

Cassidy’s painted lips stretch into a grin. “Oh, it’s not just the three of us.”

Footsteps. Ash turns: more grunts emerge from the shadows of the barn, surrounding them. Ten, at a glance, maybe more. Pikachu joins him and they stand back to back, sparkles crackling around the pokémon’s cheeks.

“You’ve stepped on a lot of toes in these years,” Cassidy says. The grunts reach for their pokéballs, their pokémon materializing one after the other in a series of flashes. “It really didn’t take long to find others who’d be glad to see you gone, especially with a little incentive.”

Ash’s fists tighten in the uniform’s gloves. “Alright, whatever,” he says though. “Let’s see what you’ve got then.”

On cue Cassidy and Butch grab their pokéballs as well, closing the circle: “Raticate, go!”

“Mightyena!”

“Alright Pikachu,” Ash pumps a fist in the air, the familiar jolt of adrenaline settling in “start with a quick attack, then use your thunderbolt to take out as many as you can!”

Pikachu darts between the enemy pokémon, leaping deftly out of the way of their attacks. Butch’s Mightyena lunges at him, only managing to bite the air; the claws of one of the grunts’ Sandslash scrape the floor. Once in the middle of the melee the yellow pokémon jumps up in the air, electricity building up around his body:

“Pi-kaaaa…”

The thunderbolt lights up the barn. Two Zubat plummet to the ground, hit by the brunt of it; Cassidy’s Raticate is thrown back by the electric blat. “Raticate, stand back up and hit it with skull bash!” the woman commands, a fire lit in her eyes.

“Pikachu, avoid it and strike it with iron tail!”

Raticate charges headfirst, a golden blur trailing behind. Pikachu jumps swiftly out of the way and then forward, glowing white tail swung towards the opponent.

The blow k.o.’s the Raticate. But landing has Pikachu cornered, Mightyena and the grunts’ pokémon blocking him from all sides. “Another thunderbolt, Pikachu, quick!” Ash instructs, and reaches for one of his pokéballs: “Staraptor, go give Pikachu a hand! Use aerial ace against Mightyena!”

Staraptor dives forward while Pikachu’s discharge of electricity bounces back the enemy pokémon. The Sandslash shakes it off with ease, though, and in a blink it’s jumped forward, its claws slashing through the air. Ash’s reaction comes a fraction of a second too late.

“Pikachu—”

The claws make contact. Pikachu staggers at the blow, on his feet still but pained; and in a moment the circle of enemy pokémon’s closed back around him, hiding him from Ash’s sight.

“Mightyena, use hyperbeam!”

“Sandslash, sand tomb!”

“Zubat—”

“Staraptor!” Ash raises his voice above the commotion. His heartbeat hastens, the rush filling his ears. “Give Pikachu some backup! Use close combat!”

The bird pokémon flies down again, its claws and beak tearing and slashing at as many of the Rocket’s pokémon at they can. Pikachu manages to use the distraction to leap out of the way of an attack, but his movements are more sluggish, his breath short. Rays of red light call back some of the grunt’s pokémon; more pop out to replace them.

“Go, Weezing, use smokescreen!”

Toxic fume floods the improvised arena. Shielding his face with one arm Ash sees the Zubat surround Staraptor and stun it with their supersonic, causing it to lose height and tumble into the brawl, and quickly scrambles for its pokéball: “Staraptor, return!” he calls, before switching to another. “Charizard!”

There’s too many of them. Pikachu manages to land another electric attack, the blast glowing through the smoke like lightning in a storm cloud, but it’s weaker now. Charizard’s flamethrower manages to take down a bunch at once but more keep coming. Ash coughs against the crook of his elbow, eyes watery from the poisonous gas.

It’s a flash: Cassidy’s Houndour lunges at Pikachu, who turns a moment too late. The pokémon’s teeth bury themselves in his fur and rip him from the ground, throwing him against the wall in a spray of firey breath. Ash’s warning catches halfway out of his throat. Pikachu tries to stand back up, staggers. Falls.

“Pikachu!”

Ash and Charizard think at once: in a moment the pokémon’s flown to his trainer and Ash’s hopped onto its back, and together they dive towards Pikachu, the teeth of a bunch of Zubat slashing at them. Ash’s fingers close on the scruff of Pikachu’s neck as they swoop.

Pikachu safe in Ash’s arms, Charizard rises towards the roof and shoots a fire blast down at the enemy, scorching the dusty ground. The Rockets scramble for cover.

“Get them!”

Some of them pull out dart guns. Ash directs Charizard with a nudge of his knees.

“Come on, let’s get out of here!”

The guns go off. Charizard aims for the roof, where the wooden boards are weathered down enough for the starry night sky to show through. Ash tucks his head in his shoulders preparing from the impact. They crash through the boards and into the chilly night air outside right as a dart buries itself into Charizard’s wing.

The dragon pokémon’s body arches in pain and fury. With a roar it spits a fire blast down at the barn, setting the remains of the roof ablaze; then before the tranquilizer takes effect attempts to take its trainer to safety. They fly away from the burning barn, past the patch of trees and another. Charizard sways, losing height. They’re too close still. It tries to keep going.

They crash to the ground in a patch of shrubs. Ash’s right shoulder hits the ground hard and there’s a cracking noise, followed by a white flash of pain. For a second his whole body goes stiff, a scream barely held behind gritted teeth.

“Chuu…?”

Warm fur and a scratchy tongue against his face. Ash opens his eyes: a roughed up Pikachu nuzzles him, his own brown eyes full of concern.

“I’m fine,” he reassures him. He pulls himself to sitting, holding onto Charizard’s unconscious form with his good arm. The right one is limp at his side, his shoulder a screaming fulcrum of pain.

They both hold their breaths, listening. No footsteps nearby. The fire turns the sky orange.

“Not our best performance, huh?” Ash exhales, stretching his lips into a weary smile. He takes Charizard’s pokéball from his belt and touches his fingers to the release button. “Return.”

Charizard disappears in a flash of red. They hide among the shrubs for a bit still, the heavy realization that they fell into an ambush like inexperienced rookies settling in, then Ash stands, stumbling a little, and stretches his good arm towards Pikachu.

“Come on. Better get out of here.”

It takes him until the first lights of dawn to make it back to the hideout on foot. His shoulder throbs. He’s pretty sure it’s broken.

He fumbles with the keys to turn them in the lock. For a moment he stands still, exhausted, resting his forehead against the door. He collects his thoughts: he’s gotta change into something less suspicious looking, then take Charizard and Pikachu to the Pokémon Center.

The Rocket agent is awake. She sits up straight with an almost inaudible gasp as he walks in, abruptly enough to wince and grab her injured side. For a few seconds they look at each other, something in her green eyes that he can’t decipher. Then he takes off the uniform’s beret and drops it to the ground, and leans against the table, exhaling a long weary breath. His fingers clasp his shoulder.

“…Are you hurt?” she asks tentatively after a bit.

“It’s nothing,” he’s quick to assure her. “My shoulder, it’s just—I fell from Charizard. I think I might have broken it.”

There’s a long pause. “Let me see,” she says then.

Ash turns to look at her, quirking an eyebrow. “Let _you_ see?”

She gives a small shrug. Her eyes skitter to the floor, her teeth catching her bottom lip. “I mean, you patched _me_ up, so.”

He hesitates. Then slowly he walks to the bed and sits down next to her, Pikachu right on his trail and eyeing her with poorly hidden suspicion. The Rocket leans closer. Her hands feel his shoulder surprisingly gently, her eyes not quite meeting his.

“Can you move your arm?” she asks. He gives it another try, sucking in a sharp intake of breath at the new jolt of pain.

“A little. Not really.”

Her fingers go over the curve of his shoulder again. “I don’t think it’s broken,” she says. “I think you just popped it out. I can fix it.”

“Fix i—”

She doesn’t wait: in a moment she’s tightened her grasp on his arm and yanked it, and Ash can’t hold back a cry of pain as his shoulder gives another snapping noise and a flash of white fills his eyes. He flinches away from her, Pikachu standing up in alarm: “Ow— _ow,_ that hurt! You couldn’t _warn me?!_ ”

“It would have hurt even if I did,” she shrugs. “Try moving your arm now.”

He does, careful. His arm works. It doesn’t even really hurt anymore, he realizes, save for a lingering dull ache.

“Huh. Yeah, it’s good now.”

On her lips flashes the smallest hint of a smile, so brief he’s not sure if he’s imagined it. He hadn’t seen her smile yet, and the new sight gives his heartstrings a tug. Her glance keeps not meeting his. “Be careful with it for a few days, you don’t want to pop it out again. It’d be best if you kept your arm in a sling.”

“I’ll think about it.”

She doesn’t retort. She stares at the floor at their feet, her hands in her lap tightening on the fabric of her uniform. “What happened?” she asks at last.

Ash raises his good hand to rub the nape of his neck, sheepish. “Um. Well. We fell for a trap, I guess. Not our proudest moment, right, Pikachu?”

The Rocket agent says nothing. Her lips press together as she keeps looking at the floor, and Ash studies her expression, his brow creasing into a frown. She seems to make herself smaller somehow, despite sitting still, like she could deflect his inquisitive glance that way. He thinks about how the grunt from the Trainer House knew about the target on his back that she was tasked to hit, and how she asked what would happen to her if he didn’t come back.

“…Did you know about it?”

“I didn’t.” Her answer comes a little too quickly. Ash watches her expectantly, quirking one eyebrow. “I… thought it might be,” she admits at last. “I didn’t recognize the place. And you said you didn’t trust your source, so.”

He exhales a small scoff. “Right. And you didn’t think to warn me, huh?”

He feels strangely hurt. He knows he shouldn’t: just two days ago she jumped him with a knife, logically he shouldn’t have expected her to warn him of a possible danger. Part of it is the knowledge that it was his own fault, and that if he hadn’t let the thought of her distract him as much as he did maybe he wouldn’t have fallen for Cassidy’s trap so easily and gotten himself and his pokémon hurt. But there’s something else too, a feeling of crushed hope and budding trust, stinging harder than it should.

Her knuckles have turned white. Ash shakes his head.

“Yeah, maybe I should just take you to Officer Jenny after all,” the combo of frustration and exhaustion pushes out of his mouth. He stands and takes off the Team Rocket uniform, careful not to hurt his shoulder again, and leaves it on the floor to toss on jeans and a t-shirt. He doesn’t turn to look at her. “I gotta go take my pokémon to the Pokémon Center. Thanks for fixing my arm, by the way.”

“…Wait,” she stops him as he’s about to step out of the door. But when he turns back to her she lowers her head and says nothing.

He waits a few moments. Then shakes his head and leaves, slamming the door just a little too hard.

When he comes back—Pikachu back on his good shoulder after a quick checkup, the spot for Charizard’s pokéball at his belt empty—they look at each other from across the room, silence stretching heavy between them. She looks away again at last, seemingly finding nothing to say still, and so he says nothing either. He tosses his jacket on the chair and sticks a mug of coffee in the microwave to heat. “Want some?” he asks, drier this time. He doesn’t expect an answer and it doesn’t come.

He walks to the investigation wall while the microwave runs and takes off the pictures he snapped of the barn. The Rocket’s eyes follow him as he lets them fall in the trash.

“My family runs a pokémon gym.”

He turns. She sits on the edge of the bed with her head lowered again, her hands tight on the sheet at her sides. He sees her shoulders rise as she takes a breath and lets it out. “My parents used to be the gym leaders. But my mother died a few years after I was born, and my father, well… he was there, but he was never really _there_ , you know? He was never the same after she died. Or well, that’s what my older sisters say, I basically never knew him. He was distant and drank a lot. It was mostly my sisters who managed the gym.”

Ash takes a couple steps towards her, forgetting the coffee. Her teeth sink into her lip.

“I was ten when he died as well. He crashed his car while drunk. Then it turned out that with all that drinking he had accumulated a lot of debt, and he left us with it.”

He quietly drags a chair closer to the bed and sits, Pikachu crouching at his feet. She goes on after another long breath. “I stopped my pokémon journey to go back home and help my sisters with the gym. For a few years we managed to keep it afloat. But it was just… too much that we couldn’t pay. We didn’t want to, but eventually it started to seem like we had no choice but to shut the gym down and sell it.”

She turns her eyes towards him. The sea green of her irises is clouded and harsh. “Then one day some people knocked on our door. They said they knew we were in trouble, and they offered to help us pay the debts. They didn’t really mention what the price would be, they just said—that we would have a deal, and that we could pay them back eventually, with no rush. In hindsight we really shouldn’t have trusted that, but hindsight is 20/20, huh? We didn’t want to lose the gym, it was all we had left of our parents at this point, we sold everything else, and I was still pretty young and my sisters… love them, but they aren’t always the brightest.”

“Were they Team Rocket?” Ash asks. “Those people?”

“Yes.” She looks down again. “They did give us the money. Even more than we needed. And for a few more years we didn’t hear from them again, and it became almost easy to think—that maybe we never would. But eventually they came back and demanded their due. One of us to join the organization and work for Giovanni until the debt was paid.”

Her hands shake just a bit. Ash feels a slight lump in his throat.

“How old were you at this point?”

“Seventeen.”

“Why you and not one of your older sisters?”

“I was the better battler. They thought I’d be the one who’d serve them best.” A shadow of a bitter smile spreads to her lips. “And my sisters would never survive this life anyway. I know them well. I just know.”

“How much money are we talking about?”

“A lot. Probably more than I can make if I work for him for the rest of my life.”

For a moment Ash finds nothing to retort. She breathes in again: it hitches a little, though her eyes are dry. “If I don’t do what Giovanni wants from me—maybe they’ll come back for one of my sisters. Or maybe one day the gym will just burn to the ground, with my sisters inside. So well, that’s why I didn’t warn you of the trap, if you were wondering.”

He’s silent for a bit. “You know,” he says then. “I meant what I said the other day. I could help you get out if you want.”

“It’s not that easy,” she scoffs. Then seems to realize that she let him get too close, and quickly hardens herself again, the small opening she had shown him a glimpse of her feelings through slamming shut. “And I never said I want to get out anyway.”

“Okay. But _if_ you wanted to, I could help you.”

She looks at him. “You don’t get it, do you? There’s no getting out. I could run away to the end of the world and he’d still be holding my sisters and the gym over my head. What’s your best suggestion, putting us all in some witness protection program? Then we still lose the gym and all of this will have been for nothing. There’s no other option. It’s either you die or my sisters die.”

There are no tears in her eyes still, but her voice shakes slightly at the foundations, like she’s holding back. Ash ponders over her words a few moment.

“Well, there is another option, actually.”

She raises her eyebrows in a silent question. He gives her a determined smile.

“We work together. You help me get to Giovanni. And once he’s finally behind bars you’re free. How does that sound?”

She stares at him in disbelief. Then lets out something halfway between a laugh and a sob, shaking her head. “Like you’re naive, that’s how it sounds. You have no idea what kind of power Giovanni really has, or you wouldn’t think that. Nobody who’s tried to take him down has succeeded yet.”

“Maybe.” He shrugs, smirking still. “But _we_ aren’t done trying yet.”

“Pika,” Pikachu puts in, backing him up. She shakes her head again and says nothing.

He sighs and lets the smile fade into a thoughtful expression. He hesitates a few moments; then stands and walks towards one of the shelves, kneeling in front of the small safe at the bottom. He enters the combination and takes out the possessions he took from her. He places her gun next to her on the bed.

“Go on then, do it.”

Pikachu promptly jumps in front of him in alarm. The Rocket agent looks at the gun and then at him like he’s insane.

“Have you lost your mind?”

“I’m challenging you.”

“To kill you?!”

“To prove that you can continue to work for Giovanni.” He gives another slight shrug. “You said you’ve killed people before, so it shouldn’t be that hard for you. It’s either your family or a stranger. Seems like a relatively easy choice.”

She takes her eyes back to the gun, her face crumpling a little. Ash presses further.

“You had at least three or four separate chances to shoot me or slit my throat and you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. And you felt bad enough for setting me up that you fixed my shoulder. Maybe I’m wrong, but I really don’t think you have it in you.”

Her hand hovers over the weapon, and Ash’s stomach clenches slightly despite the confidence in his words. At his feet Pikachu tenses, sparks emanating from his red cheeks.

She furiously lowers the hand in her lap. “I haven’t,” she spits out. “I haven’t killed anyone. This would be the first time. Happy?”

He can feel a smile curl his lips. “Yeah, quite,” he answers. She shakes her head, looking puzzled at him.

“Others wouldn’t have stopped. You’re going to get yourself killed for real someday doing stuff like this, you know that?!”

“Yeah, I get told that a lot.” He grins at her. “Not by you, though. Am I wrong?”

She doesn’t deign him of an answer, but her unwillingness to even pick up the gun says enough. Ash takes it and takes the magazine out to show her.

“It was unloaded, by the way. I did it while you were passed out.”

Now she looks at him like she _could_ murder him. Ash sets the gun aside on the nightstand and reaches into his pocket.

“Here. These are yours.”

He hands her her pokéballs. Her eyes widen a little, a slight gasp escaping her throat. She’s almost hesitant for a second, like she expects it to be another trick; then takes them and lets her pokémon out, red light dancing briefly on her features. She hugs her Staryu tight while her Zubat flaps its wings around her, and it’s like a hardened mask slips from her face, letting him catch sight of a gentleness she buried deep within herself. The tug he felt in his chest when he saw that small glimpse of a smile strikes again.

“Keep them,” he offers. She sniffles against Staryu and looks up.

“…are your pokémon okay?” she asks, tentatively. “You said you were taking them to the Pokémon Center.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He lets Pikachu climb back on his shoulder and scritches his fur. “Pikachu and Staraptor are fine. Charizard stayed behind at the Pokémon Center. He got shot with a tranquilizer dart and Nurse Joy wanted to make sure he won’t have any adverse reactions, but he should recover in a couple days.”

She doesn’t say _I’m sorry,_ but the way she lowers her head does. Ash sits next to her on the bed.

“Listen,” he tells her. “I realize I’m asking you to make a hard choice here. I won’t push, I don’t want to put you and your family in danger. That’s a choice only you can make. All I’m asking is that you think about it.”

“If I refuse are you going to get me arrested?”

“I could turn a blind eye. For this once.”

She looks at him. “You realize that if you let me go I have no choice but to go back to working for Giovanni, do you? And that means I’ll have to do it, one way or another. No matter how I feel about it.”

“I realize.” He smirks. “That’s why I really hope you’ll choose to work with me and not go back to Giovanni.”

She turns away, after shooting him another incredulous glance. “I’ve never met anyone so…”

“Convincing?”

“Annoyingly stubborn. And stupid.”

He raised his eyebrows. “But I’ve been right so far, haven’t I?”

She doesn’t say anything. Ash lets a few moments pass.

“Will you think about it?” he asks. “You can stay a couple more days, if you want. Give yourself a little more time to heal.”

“Why are you doing this?” she wants to know, for what’s at least the third or fourth time by now. “I mean—why me? Do you do this with every Rocket you meet?”

“Nah.” Ash can feel his lips fold comfortably back into a smile. “Not every one. Only when I feel it’s worth it.”

Her wound is healing well. He changes the bandage the next day: the stitches held this time and there’s no sign of infection.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Not as much. Only if I move too quickly.”

He dabs her skin with disinfectant again, careful not to hurt her, and covers the wound with a new bandage. She studies his expression.

“You look worried.”

“I was just thinking.” He places the roll of bandages and the disinfectant back in the first aid kit, stalling as he decides how much he should say. “The people who lured me into that trap. At least some of them know who I am. I’m still not sure how much of a problem that could become.”

Cassidy and Butch certainly know his name at least. The grunt from the Trainer House too, possibly, if he had the same information that the hitwoman did. He could ask her, but he won’t, unless she agrees to work with him. He snaps the box closed. “You’re not the only one with people to look out for.”

She doesn’t reply. He stands to put the first aid kit back on the shelf.

“Do you ever miss them?” she asks as he turns his back on her. For a second he hears a weird stumble in her voice, like she almost let something slip and caught herself just in time: “I mean your… people. Your family and your friends. I don’t imagine you see them often, doing this job.”

He lets out a small sigh. “Do you miss your sisters?”

“I could never stand them,” she snaps, but then looks away and her voice sheds its sharp edges. “Yeah. I do.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. But he drops the bitterness then as quickly as it came over him, turning back to her. “But it’s not that bad. I have Pikachu. And my other pokémon, too.”

Again he catches the briefest hint of a smile on her lips. He lets a few moments go by, mustering up the… he’s not sure what. But it takes something out of him to say the next few words, a strange feeling he doesn’t stop to investigate, not quite painful but not quite painless either at the same time.

“Listen,” he tells her. “Tomorrow I’ll go back to the Pokémon Center to get Charizard. I won’t shut the door when I leave.”

She looks at him, understanding what he means. She presses her lips together. “Are you sure you won’t regret it?”

“I hope I won’t have to.” He smiles. “I told you. I’m an optimist like that.”

When he reaches the hideout again with Charizard’s pokéball back at his belt the door is ajar. He stops in front of it and takes a long breath, in and out. Pikachu gives him a curious look.

“Pi?”

“Yeah,” he answers, and pushes the door open.

The light’s off inside. He gropes the wall, looking for the switch: his eyes immediately run to the bed as the neon light floods the room, finding it neatly made and empty. The chairs next, empty as well. The shower curtain pushed to the side. The gun is gone from the nightstand, replaced by a folded bundle of fabric: the t-shirt he lent her.

He lets his arm drop, a sigh escaping his chest. “Well,” he says, “maybe we should have expected it, huh, Pikachu?”

The pokémon nuzzles his cheek. Ash sighs again and takes off his jacket, reminding himself to still be careful with the shoulder she fixed. The empty room feels strangely silent, though it’s not like she was that talkative while she was there, either. It hits him at once that he never even learned her name.

Maybe she wasn’t completely wrong for calling him naive and stupid after all.

“Time to get back to work, I guess,” he says, reaching into his pocket for the keys.

There’s a small noise outside. Ash hesitates, frowning. Then cautiously retraces his steps back outside.

For a bit he sees nothing, just the empty street, silent as usual. The wind blows a plastic bag at his feet; a car’s engine coughs in the distance. It’s a few moments before his eyes fall on the shape sitting almost out of sight in the doorway of one of the nearby garages, arms wrapped tightly around her knees.

He walks tentatively towards her. The Rocket agent keeps her eyes on the ground, her teeth sunk deeply into her bottom lip. She’s back in her black uniform, but her beret is next to her on the doorstep, her hair falling over her shoulders and blowing in the breeze. It’s a nice color in the setting sunlight, a warm orange, almost auburn.

He stops. She bites her lip harder, almost drawing blood; then looks up at him.

***

“I thought you left,” the G-Man says. There’s a barely held smile in the tone of his voice. Misty draws her knees a little closer and looks away again.

“I was going to,” she replies. “I almost did.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I—”

The words stick in her throat. She takes a breath and lets it go before trying again. “I thought of running away. Maybe faking my death somehow, I don’t know. But he’d find out, he’s got eyes everywhere. And even if by some miracle he didn’t he could just replace me with one of my sisters.” She stops, feeling tears burn at the back of her eyes. Once again she can feel Giovanni’s hands around her throat, refusing to let go. “I was already in trouble before I got here. He gave me a last chance. If I leave—there’s nowhere for me to go other than back to him. And there’s no way I can get out of having to kill you.” She blinks back her tears, stubbornly refusing to let even a single one fall. “And I don’t want to kill you.”

He says nothing for a couple moments. “So… is that a yes?” he asks at last. “Are you going to work with me?”

“I can’t be—a source,” she puts her foot down. “It can’t be a long term thing. I still have some time, probably, but he’s gonna demand some results from me soon enough. I can’t be out there with you contacting me when you need something. I can only stretch this so far before I start to really put my sisters and the gym in danger.”

He considers. “Well, okay. We’re gonna have to work fast then I guess, but we can try.”

She can’t hold back a breath that’s almost a bout of incredulous laugh. “You really don’t give up at anything, do you?”

“Not usually,” he smirks. But she’s not done.

“I can’t be—your friend, either,” she adds. She still can’t look him in the eye as she does. “We would be a danger to each other. He would use you against me or the other way around.”

Silence for a few seconds. “Okay,” he says then.

She looks up. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” He sits next to her on the doorstep, not close but not far either, his Pikachu jumping into his lap. “You’re not my source and you’re not my friend. We’re just two people working towards a common goal. How’s that?”

She thinks about it: “Fine, I guess.”

The G-Man—Ash, she can’t stop herself from thinking despite her best intentions—smiles at her. Warm sunset light reflects in his brown eyes. Delia’s eyes.

“Can I know your name?” he asks. “It’s fine if you don’t wanna tell me. But it’d be useful to have a way to refer to you other than ‘that one Rocket grunt’ or something like that.”

She hasn’t told anyone her real name in a good while. She almost says _Rose;_ then catches herself.

“It’s Misty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter might take a little longer because it's going to need a bit more planning and research and also because it's the holidays! Hope it will be worth the wait.


	4. IV

_“We only came close to him once.”_

_Lance stands at the window of his Blackthorn loft apartment, his hands clasped at the base of his back, his glance turned to the mountainous skyline. Ash looks at him._

_“Giovanni?”_

_The older man nods. The lines of his face are harsh in the reflection. “It was many years ago, before you and I first met. I had only just recently joined the G-Men myself. He was still the gym leader in Viridian City at the time, for the longest time no one had suspected him of even having relations to the organization. He was very deft at keeping his illegal activities separate from his public persona. But it’s almost impossible not to leave even the faintest breadcrumb trail when your power extends so far.”_

_He pauses as he recalls the events, a deep crease at the center of his forehead. “A grunt let his name slip during a police interrogation. He later backtracked and we couldn’t get anything else out of him, but once we knew to look for it Giovanni’s name started to pop up in all sorts of places that somehow led us back to Team Rocket. He had financed the development of a piece of tech that eventually wound up in Team Rocket’s hands, or he owned a share of a company that somehow turned profitable for them. Nothing outright incriminating per se, there was always some degree of separation between him and the organization, but it was enough to launch an investigation on his person.” His frown grows deeper still in the window. “But when we sent a squad to the Viridian gym to bring him in for questioning we found it empty. He had fled already.”_

_“How did he know?” Ash shifts on the couch. Next to him Pikachu listens intently, ears perked up. “Did someone warn him?”_

_“Plants in the police.” Lance spits out the words bitterly. “We had underestimated the organization’s reach. We were able to smoke them out eventually, but too late. Days after Giovanni’s disappearance a spokesperson announced that he was officially stepping down from his gym leader position. Ever since then he’s managed to lead an extremely elusive life and remain mostly under the radar, though his name kept coming up from time to time. We never came that close to him again.”_

_“Is that why Agatha has been managing the Viridian gym?”_

_“You’ve heard?”_

_“I battled her there once. Years back, after I came back from my journey in Hoenn.” Ash’s hand sheepishly rubs the nape of his neck. “Her Gengar kicked my ass.”_

_An amused smirk flashes on Lance’s lips. “She’s a force to be reckoned with, isn’t she? She’s been a good friend of mine for many years and I know her talent, so when she stepped up and offered to cover the vacant position I endorsed her as the ruling Champion. A few candidates have showed up over the years to fill the role permanently, but none that she deigned good enough.”_

_“She seems quite the demanding type,” Ash agrees. His_ _brow_ _scrunches up then. “But—Giovanni,” he says, shifting the conversation back to its original topic “did he really give up the gym that easily? Wouldn’t someone like him have a B plan ready or something?”_

_“Perhaps this was the B plan,” says Lance. “Perhaps he only ever saw the gym as a smokescreen of no particular importance, and once he found himself under scrutiny the risks of maintaining it surpassed the advantages. Or perhaps he truly felt cornered, though I wouldn’t count on it.”_

_Ash purses his lips. There’s a weight to the ex Champion’s revelations that’s starting to truly hit him, like someone tore away at the bright coat of paint of the world he knew to reveal the uglier underneath where a respected gym leader and the head of a criminal organization can be one and the same. There’s no going back now that he’s seen it. He shakes his head, an unsettling feeling nestled in the pit of his stomach._

_“Could he really do… what he does, and be a gym leader at the same time for so long? I mean—as careful as he might have been… can it really be that no one noticed anything?”_

_Lance is silent for a couple moments. “His moles in the police might have facilitated him. Muddling evidence, covering up any minor slip-ups he might have made,” he answers. Then turns, abruptly, and looks straight at him with a stern eye. “If you want to do this job, Ash, there’s one thing that’s crucial. Be very careful with who you choose to trust. Always assume he’s got ears and eyes in places you don’t imagine.”_

“What do you know about Giovanni?”

Ash lets out a sigh. “Not a lot,” he admits. “Most of what I have is from Lance. I know he used to be the gym leader of Viridian City. And I know he retired from the position almost ten years ago, and that there’s barely any evidence of him existing in the public ever since them. There’s some proof of him owning various businesses and activities, some of them related to Team Rocket, but he’s very good at this. There’s never a direct connection.”

The Rocket studies the clippings on the wall. _Misty,_ he corrects himself, trying out the name she trusted him with. It feels strangely fitting somehow, he finds himself thinking: a sharp sound, but with a softness to it. She gives him a curious look.

“Have you met him? He would still have been the gym leader when you first traveled through Kanto, wouldn’t he?”

“He was, but no, I haven’t. He wasn’t at the gym that day, he left three of his underlings to sub for him.” He pauses and glances at her. “Maybe you know them? Their names are Jessie, James and Meowth, they’re… old acquaintances of mine, I guess we could say.”

Her eyebrows shoot up a little. “I know _of_ them. They have a reputation for repeatedly getting their asses kicked by some kid with a Pikachu.” She blinks. Her eyes shift from his face to the pokémon on his shoulder. “…Don’t tell me that’s you two.”

He grins: “Guilty as charged.”

She shakes her head, a look in her eyes that’s something between annoyed and amused disbelief. She turns back to the wall. “Who took this photo?” she asks, touching her fingertips to the blurry picture of the man clad in orange. “You?”

“Nah. I’ve never come that close to him. A paparazzi snapped it here in Viridian a few months back. He had no idea, he just thought he’d been lucky to catch a glimpse of the elusive former gym leader. I still don’t know what he was doing back here.”

She’s quiet. When he looks at her an unreadable shadow has fallen on her face. “Okay, your turn,” he pries. “What can _you_ tell me about Giovanni?”

She gives a small shrug. “What do you want to know?”

“Hmm. Well let’s start with this: did the order to kill me really come from him? Like, directly?”

“Yes. But I meant what I said. Don’t think too much of it, he doesn’t consider you a threat, only an annoyance.”

“I’ll take it, I guess. How does he get in touch with you? Does he use a middleman? Speak to you in person?”

A hesitation. “Most of the time he uses his secretary,” she says then. She seems to pick her words carefully, like she’s skirting around something. “Matori. I have a burner pokégear that she contacts me through. If Giovanni wants to see you in person—most of the time it’s either a really good sign or a really bad one. Usually the latter.”

“But you _have_ met him in person, yeah?”

She says nothing, her eyes glued to the wall like she’s afraid he might read something in them. Her cheek works like she’s biting down at it. Her body language builds a wall around her, and Ash watches her for a few moments, his brow slowly creasing into a frown.

“Has he… hurt you?” he asks. She blinks. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he quickly adds. “I just thought—”

“He hasn’t,” she cuts him off. “Others have, but not him. It’s not his style, he doesn’t get his hands dirty. Intimidation is enough.”

Her hand reaches for her throat, absentmindedly, like for a second she found it hard to breathe. Some part of him wants to prod about those others, a bout of anger blossoming in his chest at the thought. He doesn’t though, and instead he purses his lips, hesitating as he looks for the right words. “Listen, um. I’m not… these questions, you’re not _forced_ to answer, alright? There’s no need to be scared.”

She shoots him an oblique glare. “What, of you? I’m not, don’t get weird ideas.”

“Okay, fair. I’m not the attempted assassin here.” He pulls his lips into a brief smirk. “I just want you to know. I’m not… trying to be another Giovanni that you work for. I’m not gonna hold anything over your head, I’ve already let you walk free, I’m not changing my mind. But I need you to help me if we want to get somewhere.”

She looks somewhat touched. But she shakes her head and turns back to the wall with a sigh. “It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

Another pause. She takes a breath; her eyes follow the threads to stop on the articles about Lance. She mulls over whatever she’s thinking for a moment still, then releases the breath in another sigh. “You said that Lance’s death was ruled an accident but you didn’t believe it. How did you come to that conclusion?”

The unexpected question evokes a small twinge in Ash’s chest. “Well,” he answers though “immediately after the accident—the Officer Jenny from Blackthorn City talked about suspicious elements. It’s a mountain road, there’s a lot of those in Blackthorn, it’s not that hard to lose control of your car for a moment and go off the road. Lots of accidents have happened that way. But in Lance’s case she said the tire tracks didn’t show any signs of braking. As if—his brakes had been cut.”

His glance follows hers to the post-it and the few words he scribbled on it. _blackthorn city officer jenny – implicated ?_. He doesn’t notice his hand tightening into a fist. “And then only days later she retracted everything and closed the case saying there was no evidence of foul play. It was very sudden, as if… someone bought her silence. Every attempt I’ve made to look into it myself ran me into a wall, the case files are inaccessible. And Lance—always warned me to be very careful who I opened up with about our job. He told me Giovanni has people inside the police. So…”

He leaves the obvious conclusion to hang in the air between them. Pikachu gives him a quiet nuzzle, well accustomed to the painful memories. Misty sinks her teeth into her lip.

“Lance was right,” she tells him. “I don’t know about his death specifically, I had no involvement with that. But Giovanni has people in the police, he was right about that. But—it’s not only the police.”

Ash frowns at her. “What do you mean?”

“The Viridian gym.” She sighs again, her eyes not quite meeting his. “He never actually left it. Only the practical gym leader duties. But the influence the gym has on the Pokémon League and everything—he would never have given that up. He just placed someone who would raise no suspicions to act on his behalf.”

“What? Agatha?” Ash blinks. “No way.”

“What reason would I have to lie to you? I’m already in trouble. If he finds out I’m collaborating with a G-Man my sisters and I are worse than dead, it’s not exactly in my best interest to give you false information and waste our time.” She looks at him. “You asked if I’ve met him in person. I had to tell you this to answer your question. He has an office at the gym, that’s where I met with him. He’s been coming and going under your nose this whole time.”

He shakes his head. “I know Agatha. I’ve met her. And Lance—”

A cold sickening feeling creeps into his stomach. He stares at her in silence, thinking of Lance speaking fondly of Agatha, of the smile he could always hear in his voice as he did even when one wasn’t visible on his face. Lance telling him that Agatha herself offered to replace the missing gym leader. That she held the position over the years, turning down every candidate.

He turns and walks away abruptly, leaning onto the table as the floor feels suddenly unsteady. Nausea climbs to the roof of his mouth before the feeling’s even done forming into a coherent thought.

“Pikapi?” Pikachu questions him. Behind him come a couple footsteps, then silence.

“Are you okay…?” the Rocket asks at last.

“Agatha was Lance’s friend,” he hears himself answer, his voice strangely distant. “He said to be careful with who I trusted. But he trusted Agatha, I know he did. If he opened up to her about his job—”

He can’t stand to finish the sentence. She stands in awkward silence for a bit.

“Sorry,” she says finally. Ash turns.

“What else do you know about this?”

“Nothing except what I just told you. I know that Agatha has been working for Giovanni since the start and that he uses her to meddle with the League. That’s it. I don’t know if she ratted Lance out to Giovanni, if it’s what you want me to tell you.”

He turns back away, unable to keep looking at her despite himself. He stares down at his hands clasping the table, at the scratched surface, feeling his world destabilized, once again as if a coat of paint had suddenly been torn. He shakes his head again. “No, you’re—you’re wrong about this, there’s no way. I can’t believe it.”

“I’ve been at the gym. I met Giovanni there while Agatha was battling trainers two rooms over.”

In his mind crowd the memories of his own battles with Agatha. The compliments she parsimoniously handed him at the end, the calm smile and the head tip as she accepted her loss as a member of the Elite Four before he went on to battle Lance. Anger overcomes him and he slams frustrated fists against the table, the impact ricocheting through his nerves like an electric shock.

A startled Pikachu nuzzles his cheek. He forces himself to breathe.

“Are there others?”

“Probably. I don’t know everything.”

Neither says anything for a bit. “I—might have something about Agatha, actually,” she adds then, hesitant. “Something that incriminates her I mean.”

Ash looks at her. “Huh?”

“At my place. I have some files about Team Rocket’s activities. I think I saw her name in there.”

“Show me.”

She gives it a moment of consideration. “What did you do with my motorbike?”

The motorbike is where she left it—he went back to secure it to a lamppost to make sure it wouldn’t be stolen. Neither of them speaks as they retrace the distance between the hideout and the warehouse on foot, and he tries to let the night air clear his thoughts, reeling from the revelation she dropped on him. The echo of their footsteps follows them in the empty streets.

She gives the bike a quick check and lifts the seat to pull out a helmet. “I don’t have one for you,” she tells him as she fastens it under her chin. Ash shrugs.

“Try not to crash us and I’ll be fine.”

She hops on and nods for him to do the same. He hesitates a seconds, then lifts a leg over the seat and awkwardly places his hands on her waist, careful to avoid her healing injury.

“That’s great if you want to go flying,” she scoffs and reaches for his arms to pull them tighter around herself. Ash’s heartbeat stutters in the smallest hitch as her back leans onto his chest. She turns to look at him and Pikachu from above her shoulder: “Hold on tight. Both of you.”

Then she kicks the brake stand and starts the engine and he isn’t entirely sure that this isn’t a last ditch attempt to kill him.

By the time they reach their destination he feels a little weak in the knees. “You always drive like this?” he inquires, giving Pikachu a comforting ruffle to reassure him that he can open his eyes now.

Misty glances at him as she takes off her helmet. “Like what?”

“Nevermind.”

She leads him up a fire escape into the apartment complex, motioning for him to be quiet. It’s a run-down area of the city, concrete walls and rickety fixtures and smell of cigarette smoke and exhaust hanging heavy in the air. The building is mostly silent, only a couple of the windows they pass lit, and their steps feel strangely too loud on the metal stairs when they shouldn’t be—it’s her own place she’s leading him to, after all. Her keys jingle in the dark.

The emptiness strikes him first thing as she flips the switch on the wall. Cold white light floods a room that’s too small for the furniture it contains but void of anything personal, like nobody really lives here. It would look almost vacant if not for the half made bed and the scatter of papers on the table, and the pile of coffee mugs left in the sink.

“You live here?” he asks, stumbling on a corner of the carpet that’s come loose. A small squeeze in his chest accompanies the question.

“Yeah. You live in a garage so spare me the speech.”

She marches straight for the nightstand to pick up a pokégear. She flips it open and lets out a relieved breath at the empty screen. “Turn,” she tells him then. “I want to change first.”

He complies, despite impatience eating away at him. His glance runs over the bare walls and the empty shelves to fall back on the papers on the table. A stapled picture in a corner catches his eye. He walks closer: his own face stares back at him from the flat surface of the polaroid. He turns one of the pages with a frown.

_NAME OF TARGET: ASH KETCHUM_

_DATE OF BIRTH: MAY 22, 1987_

He shuffles the papers around, skimming over his personal details and the reports on his interferences with Team Rocket’s activities. “So you know everything about me, huh?”

A pause. “Yeah.”

He flips another page. His stomach crumples as he reveals more pictures: his house in Pallet Town and his mother, caught in her garden in her sunhat in one photo, cut from a larger picture of the audience cheering on him at the Indigo League. “Who else knows all of this?”

“Giovanni. Maybe his secretary. I don’t know who else.”

“What about the Rockets who were with you at the Trainer House?”

“They know nothing of this as far as I know. They didn’t even know I was there with them, I snuck in.”

Another page brings up Professor Oak’s name. The names of some of his friends. He presses his lips together, briefly. “One of them was with the people who lured me into that trap the other night. He knew Giovanni wants me taken out, that’s why they orchestrated the whole thing.”

“Some of them caught me. I had to tell them Giovanni sent me there to look for you so they wouldn’t think _I_ was the mole. I never mentioned your name, if he knew it he must have gotten it from someone else.”

That leaves Butch and Cassidy then. The weight in his throat relents somewhat: they know his name and who he is, of course, the face of the former regional Champion is a recognizable one. But at least they don’t have the amount of information that’s laid in front of his eyes, if she’s telling the truth and the others weren’t handed it.

He hears a sharp intake of breath and a muttered curse. “Huh—everything alright?” he asks, resisting the impulse to turn.

“Yeah. Just still kinda hurts a bit, I forgot to be careful.” Silence for a few seconds. “You can look.”

He does. She’s changed into a yellow t-shirt and shorts, the black uniform folded in her arms. They look at each other for a moment. “How did you know I’d be at the Trainer House?” he wants to know. “I barely planned that myself, I only found out about the operation a couple days prior.”

“I tried my luck,” she shrug. “I figured my best bet to find you without knowing where you were hiding would be to catch you in the act. You’re kind of predictable.”

“Predictable?”

“All your recent activity has been around Viridian. And you seem to have a preference for high stakes operations, like you have some kind of death wish.”

Ash raises one eyebrow. “Okay, point.”

She looks at him. “The next person won’t hesitate. Someone else is going to figure it out like I did, with or without the help of all that stuff.”

“They won’t if we get to Giovanni first,” Ash dismisses her warning. “What do you have about Agatha?”

She walks to the table and opens a laptop left next to the scattered pages. Her fingers drum impatiently on the trackpad as she waits for it to boot up. Ash looks over her shoulder, Pikachu perched on his to see as well. Swallowing finds his throat dry with anticipation.

She launches a document file. The word _CONFIDENTIAL_ in big letters flashes at the top of the screen.

“What’s that?” he asks, leaning closer. She flips through the pages.

“Data on Team Rocket’s planned operations. I was using it to figure out what your next move might be.”

Ash’s heartbeat hastens some. Dates, names, locations flash rapidly before his eyes. That amount of information would be the work of months, maybe years. “All that stuff is Team Rocket’s future plans?”

“Yeah.” She pauses and skims one of the pages more carefully. She points her finger at the screen: “Here, look, I knew I saw it somewhere. Giovanni is planning to get his hands on some technology developed by Silph Co. in Saffron City. Agatha recently became a major shareholder for the company. She’s going to be present at a gala event and facilitate the access of a few Rocket agents to the building.”

He stares at the document. Agatha’s name is right in front of his eyes, black on white; yet his brain pushes against it, refusing to accept it as true. He shakes his head, swallowing down the acid taste that’s creeping up his throat.

“I—need to take this whole thing to Officer Jenny.”

She snaps the laptop closed. “You can’t.”

“What?”

“I’m not even supposed to have this. I had to beg Giovanni’s secretary for it. If it ends up in the police’s hands he’ll know it came from me.”

“But I can’t just—let all of this happen, I have to stop it.”

“Well though luck, but I’m not gonna give you something that’s gonna put a giant flashing arrow on my head.”

They look daggers at each other for a moment. He forces himself to take a deep breath then, and takes his glance from her, frustration balling his hands into restless fists. “Fine. I’ll think of something. Take the laptop.”

“Wha—where are you going?” her voice follows him as he turns. He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t stop until he’s back outside at the top of the stairs and there he forces another few deep breaths down his throat, clenching his fists tighter still as he tries to keep them from shaking. Pikachu looks at him with concern while his mind runs back to Lance in his apartment, Lance talking about Agatha.

Maybe if he’d just realized it sooner—

He doesn’t let himself finish the thought. He reaches for Charizard’s pokéball at his belt and touches his thumb to the release button: the pokémon materializes in a red flash above the fire escape, orange wings spread against the night sky. He levers himself onto its back.

“Where are you going?!” Misty questions him again, appearing behind him with the laptop in one arm and her other hand shoving the pokégear in the pocket of her shorts. He doesn’t turn to look at her.

“To get something,” he answers. He rummages into his pocket for his keys and tosses them into her hand. “Go back to my place and wait for me there. I’ll reach you.”

He hears her yelling at him to wait, but he can’t. He takes to the sky without turning back, a weight in his chest like a stone.

***

It’s almost morning by the time he comes back. He doesn’t even acknowledge her; instead he drops a bag on the table and then walks to one of the shelves to haul something from the bottom of it. A small TV and a VCR. He places those on the table too and tinkers with the cables for a while, his brow creased in a focused frown. His Pikachu watches his every move with a hint of concern.

“What are you doing?” she asks at last. Static fills the screen of the TV as he finally manages to turn it on.

“Traffic cameras,” he answers without turning. “If Giovanni’s coming and going from the gym some must have caught him. I need to see it with my own eyes.”

He reaches into the bag and pops a videotape into the VCR. The static is replaced by a grainy shot of a street corner, a date and timer at the top. She shrugs: “Is hearing it from me and seeing Agatha’s name in a confidential Team Rocket document not enough?”

“I just need to see,” he insists.

There’s an aggravation in his voice, not quite unsteady but almost, like it’s teetering on the edge of a tipping point. She studies him for a bit, her lips pursed; then lets out a sigh and walks closer to look at the screen above his shoulder.

“I don’t see the gym.”

“There aren’t any cameras on the gym. I guess it’s no coincidence, is it? I’m gonna have to check all the nearby streets.”

“Where did you get these tapes?”

“Officer Jenny.” He pauses for a moment, then adds: “She’s good. I’ve been working with her for years. She’s helped me too many times to be secretly on Giovanni’s side.”

Misty says nothing. He stares at the grainy street for some time.

“Do you know how he gets around? What kind of car he uses, or if it’s even a car.”

“I don’t know. He’s always been already there waiting when he wanted to see me.”

“When was the last time he did? The date. Do you remember?”

She thinks about it. The memory of her last meeting with Giovanni makes her stomach churn a little. “It was… April 26, I’m pretty sure.”

“Okay. April 26. That should help me narrow it down,” he mutters, more to himself than to her. She watches him grab the remote and fastforward through the footage, focused, the lines of his face taut in the blueish light.

It’s almost as if her revelation flipped a switch and now she’s seeing a different side of him, one that isn’t as bafflingly unaffected as the exterior he showed her until now. She chews on the inside of her cheek, unsure what to say, trying to match the person who grinned with her gun pointed in his face to the bag of nerves he looks to be now. She watches him sift through the hours of footage for a bit still; then shakes her head and decides she might as well fetch herself some breakfast in the meantime. It’s basically morning anyway.

“Want something?” she asks, opening the minifridge. He doesn’t lift his eyes from the screen.

“I’m not hungry.”

She settles on a banana for herself and finds a can of pokémon food for Pikachu too. She heats herself some coffee in the microwave, then thinks again and heats up a second mug. She leaves it on the table next to him.

He glances at it. “I told you—”

“It’s not food,” she shrugs. “Leave it if you don’t want it.”

He goes back to staring at the screen. Minutes turn into an hour; then two. The coffee goes cold in the mug: he picks it up absentmindedly only to make a face like the smell turned his stomach and set it back down. Misty looks with him for a while, dragging a chair to sit on, then crosses her arms on the table and rests her chin on top of them letting her mind wander. The screen shows identical images of cars and passerbys.

Two hours turn into three. The VHS pile on the table.

“There,” he exclaims at last. She jumps and straightens her back. He rewinds the tape to rewatch the last few seconds: a black old-style Cadillac moves swiftly across the screen, the windows and the license plate both obscured. It matches the blurry car shape in the paparazzi picture pinned to the wall.

“That’s gotta be him,” he says, pausing the recording. His breath catches just slightly. “It’s the morning of April 26. And the gym is just beyond that corner.”

She gives a small shrug. “I guess.”

“He hid the license plate. Smart.”

She finds nothing to reply. He looks at the screen for a couple moments still, shaking his head a little, then releases a breath that fades into a hint of a bitter laugh.

“So it really is true, huh?”

“I told you.”

“This whole time he really was coming and going from Viridian under my nose. The gym is what, ten minutes from here? Some investigator I am.”

She hears an ache buried deep in his voice now. She shrugs a bit again, wanting to offer a comforting word but unsure how to. “He fooled a lot of people.”

“Yeah. Are they also G-Men who spent the last three years on his trail?”

She says nothing. His shoulders slouch as his glance wanders towards the table.

“I’ve known Agatha since I was… what, fourteen? Thirteen? All this time and I never—it never even crossed my mind.”

“She fooled a lot of people too. Including the Pokémon League.”

“Maybe if I’d realized sooner Lance wouldn’t be—”

He can’t finish. The realization that he’s giving himself the blame for his mentor’s death hits her at once, causing her heart to swell in empathy a little. Some part of her wants to reach out and lay a hand on his shoulder. She doesn’t, feeling it’s not her place; and she’s thankful that Pikachu does it for her, standing on his hind legs to lick his trainer’s face. Ash gives him a distracted ruffle, his expression not changing one bit.

“You can’t know,” she tells him. “You don’t even know if it was really Agatha who told Giovanni about him. He could have found out in plenty of other ways.”

“I don’t know that she didn’t, either.”

Misty bites her lip. He says nothing else for a few moments, then shakes his head again, almost like he’s trying to forcefully chase away the thought. “Can I see your laptop?”

She slides it towards him. He sifts through Matori’s files until he lands back on the page she showed him at her apartment. “Is there anything else about Agatha?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

He rereads the few lines of text and sighs out in frustration. He scrolls through the pages again until something seems to catch his eye, and he frowns at the screen for a few seconds and then stands abruptly to go look at his wall. He mutters something to himself that sounds like _I knew it_ , and less than a moment later he’s headed for the shelves again and grabbed his Team Rocket uniform. Misty blinks as he starts to change into it.

“Where are you going now?”

“There was this place I suspected of being a Team Rocket front. A wholesale terminal here in Viridian. It’s in your file. I’m gonna go take a look.”

“…Now?”

He buckles his pokéball belt. “I need to take my mind off this.”

She gives him an incredulous stare, then stands as well with a loud sigh. “You’re a handful, you know that?”

He looks at her. “You’re not coming.”

“You’re not telling me what to do.”

“You’re still hurt.” He leans down to slip on his boots. “You should take it easy.”

“And you haven’t slept or eaten, and you’re obviously upset about Lance and distracted. Great combination if you want to slip up and get yourself captured or killed.”

“It would solve one of your problems.”

She crosses her arms and plants herself in front of him. “I’m sorry you had to find out about it the hard way, okay? But it’s not my fault that Agatha works for Giovanni.”

He pauses long enough to give her a glance. “I know it’s not your fault,” he replies then, turning to grab his gloves from the shelf.

“Then don’t act like it is! _You_ wanted me to work with you. Then let me.”

“You’re hurt,” he says again, gentler. “And someone might see you with me and recognize you.”

“I’ll stay out of sight unless you need help.”

Some it is a sense of guilt speaking. If something happens to him, if he doesn’t make it back, she’ll know it’s because of the world-shattering distraction she planted into his head. But the thought of him not making it back twists her insides on its own, too, more than it should when she’s only known him for days and she pushes back against that truth, burying it deep down. _I can’t be your friend,_ she told him; she reminds herself. She can’t let him matter to her, and she chastises herself for allowing some degree of it already.

He tosses on his jacket to hide the uniform. “Fine, as you want,” he gives in. “Just be careful.”

“I’ll be. I know Team Rocket better than you do.”

She reaches for the windbreaker she brought along from her place while he lets Pikachu climb to his spot on his shoulder. “I guess you do,” he says, sour. “Fine. Let’s go.”

***

The building looks unsuspecting enough. Ash slowly circles it on Charizard before silently directing the pokémon back to the next block, where he left Misty and her motorbike. “I only saw one person,” he says as he dismount. “A man smoking a cigarette at the entrance. Not in a Team Rocket uniform, but he seemed to be guarding the place. At the very least he’s been there a while, there’s a lot of cigarette butts on the ground.”

“What’s your plan?” she wants to know. He calls Charizard back into its pokéball.

“I’m gonna sneak inside and take a look. I was gonna wait till I had more substantial evidence, but your file is enough.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“There’s no need. Looks like an easy job, I’ll be back in minutes.”

“You don’t decide for me,” she insists. He lets out a sigh.

“And _I’m_ the handful, huh? Whatever. Fine.”

They approach the building quietly. He’s not used to anyone other than Pikachu being with him since Lance, and her presence makes him a strange kind of nervous, like the feeling of having a side exposed to the opponent’s attacks in a battle. He realizes the superfluousness of that worry as he acknowledges it—she’s anything but defenseless; she managed to jump him with a knife and throw him to the ground even with a fresh wound the size of his hand. But he’s still helpless to shake it.

“Wait here,” he whispers hastily before he turns to lift himself to an open window. He swings his legs past the sill and slips into the neon-lit interior. He almost groans at the rustling that immediately follows him.

When he turns she’s already dangling her feet inside. She lets herself fall to the floor and stumbles a little, her hand running to her injured side, but she lowers it before giving him the satisfaction of reminding her he _told_ her she’s still hurt. He scowls at her all the same.

They’re surrounded by pallets stocked full of bales and crates of pokémon food and by the sterile hum of the neons. Ash tries to bury the insistent thought of Lance and Agatha at the back of his mind as he scans the place, only managing it somewhat. _Focus._ Nothing looks out of the ordinary at first glance.

They proceed with caution. Footsteps come from the maze of pallets and shelves and they wait for them to pass by ducking behind a pile of crates, Ash holding a finger to his lips in a silent _be quiet._ He doesn’t notice his own arm stretched out to shield Misty until she raises an eyebrow at him. He takes it back hit by a strange awkwardness that bothers him slightly, but not enough to actually question.

_Focus!_

He investigates his surroundings again. His eyes fall on a stack of pallets covered by a tarp. As if sharing his same intuition, Pikachu steps ahead to sniff at it, ears and tail perked up in alert.

Ash follows him. He lifts a corner of the tarp and his breath catches in his throat.

Caged pokémon, and so many of them. Enough to fill a truck’s cargo. Some unconscious and battered, some awake enough to throw themselves at the metal bars or shrink growling at the sight of his Rocket uniform. Ash’s fingernails dig into his palm through his glove, white-hot anger lighting up like a match and flaring up to fill his chest. He turns to Misty only to see a contained reflection of his anguish on her face.

He lowers the tarp to muffle the pokémon’s cries, his stomach crumpled to a painful knot. He quickly determines the best course of action: take on the guy at the entrance and whoever else is in the building first. Then call Officer Jenny to come collect the pokémon and get them out of there.

“Knew I’d heard something.”

He turns. A second man stands across from them, clad in a black uniform. Without even thinking Ash steps forward and pushes Misty behind himself, holding one arm in front of her.

The man narrows his eyes at them, a hand already on the pokéballs at his belt. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He doesn’t even try to hold up the pretense this time. “What the hell do _you_ think you’re doing with these pokémon?!” he growls instead, his clenched fists itching to make him regret the sight that was just in front of his eyes. The man gives an unfazed shrug.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” he says. He unhooks one of his pokéballs: “And I think you shouldn’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. Go, Raticate, teach ‘em a lesson!”

“Get ready, Pikachu! Hit it with a thunderbolt!”

Pikachu leaps towards the opponent as it charges at him, swiftly avoiding a bite attack with a dash to the side; and jumps into the air as electricity discharges from his body to engulf the Raticate’s. The pokémon seizes with a piercing screech and collapses to the ground in a heap. It stands back up, staggering and heaving labored breaths, its eyes scanning the makeshift arena—only for Pikachu to reappear behind it and ram into it with a quick attack that sends it flying.

It stays on the ground this time. The man tightens his jaw, clearly taken aback, and quickly switches the pokéball for another. “That was only a warm-up. Raticate, return! Ekans!”

“The hell’s going on here?”

The man Ash saw guarding the entrance pops his head between the pallet stacks. “Intruders,” the other one snarls in response as Ekans and Pikachu face each other. Only a moment too late Ash registers the guard reaching for a radio at his belt.

“Go Staryu, use rapid spin!”

Misty’s Staryu flies past him in a blur, knocking the radio out of the man’s hand. In a blink’s time it’s smashed to pieces on the floor and the man’s grasping his wrist with a yelp, and Staryu’s spinning motion lands it back like a boomerang at Misty’s feet.

Ash turns his head to look at her. A beat; then it’s as if something clicks as their eyes meet, a shared frequency, and they both turn back at once to face the opponents:

“Staryu, use your water gun!”

“Pikachu, follow it up with another thunderbolt!”

Pikachu’s electricity creeps along the water blast. The water carries it and amplifies its reach, and both men and the Ekans are swallowed by the flash of blinding white, sparks rising as high as the ceiling. Ash raises one arm to shield his eyes. When he lowers it both men have collapsed to the floor, dying static flickers still hanging onto their unmoving forms.

He quickly scans the piles around them. He spots a bundle of rope left draped on top of a stack of crates and hurries to grab it, then crouches to haul the two Rockets closer together before they begin to regain consciousness. “Give me a hand,” he tells Misty, lifting one of them to a sitting position.

They tie them back to back, wrists and ankles immobilized. The Ekans is quickly recalled into its pokéball and both pokéball belts unbuckled and kicked out of reach.

“Too easy,” he can’t help but comment as he straightens his back. Something within him feels awake again, stirred by the thrill of the easy triumph or maybe by how easily their efforts combined into one as if upon rehearsal. The guard starts to rouse and mutter something, a pained grimace contorting his mouth.

Ash towers over him, hands on his hips. “Are there others in his building?” he inquires. Pikachu punctuates the question releasing a bout of electricity in a not-very-subtle threat. “Right answers only.”

“N-no,” the man spits, through gritted teeth.

“Good.” Ash’s glance falls back on the cages under the tarp. His chest tightens in a painful squeeze. He walks away from the men and reaches into his pocket for his pokégear.

He calls Officer Jenny and gives her the address of the terminal, and tells her to alert the Pokémon Center too and bring an ambulance for the pokémon that might need urgent care. He flips the device closed then and walks to the cages, grabbing the tarp by a corner and pulling it to the ground. Aching, he stands in front of the battered pokémon as many snarl at him, and takes off the uniform’s beret, breaking the disguise as best as he can.

“You’ll be okay very soon,” he tells them, laying a hand against the metal bars. “I promise. It’s all over now, you just need to hang in there a little longer, alright?”

He turns to Misty. “The ropes should hold,” he says, nodding his head towards the two Rockets. “Officer Jenny should be here in minutes, we’re not very far from the police station. I don’t think you want to be here when she reaches us, yeah? Let’s go.”

He lingers a moment still, petting the cage as if he could ease the pokémon’s suffering that way, wishing he could take their pain and their fear away with them. Then they retrace their steps to the window. He climbs out first, Pikachu holding onto his shoulder.

Misty follows. She stumbles again as her feet hit the sidewalk, and this time a muffled grunt escapes her teeth and she doubles over, clasping her healing injury. He’s by her side in a moment, one hand brushing the small of her back.

“Are you okay? You’re not bleeding again, are you?”

“I’m fine.” She huffs a couple shaky breaths. “Just—gimme a moment.”

“I told you you shouldn’t have come. You still need to take it easy, you’re—”

“I’m _fine_ ,” she insists. She straightens herself and scowls at him, her hand still pressed against her side. “And you didn’t need to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Stand in front of me like that, back in there! You don’t need to protect me.”

He shrugs: “And you didn’t need to help me, but you did anyway.”

“I didn’t do it to help you.” She looks away. “I couldn’t let them call for help or get away after they saw me with you. If someone recognizes me I’m done for.”

Ash raises his eyebrows. A smile tugs at the corners of his lips anyway, though, and he lets it spread to a grin. It feels natural in the same way that coordinating their moves in battle did, a feeling he realizes he had missed for the past few hours. “Okay. Thanks for the help.”

He earns a death stare in return. “Don’t do that again. You can’t put my safety before yours, I told you, we can’t be friends. It’s a weakness, Giovanni loves to exploit those.”

“I didn’t do it because we’re friends.” He gives another small shrug. “I did it because I wouldn’t leave someone in danger, friend or not.”

Her expression softens the smallest bit, like something in his words touched her. She catches herself after a moment though and hardens again. “I wasn’t in danger.”

“Neither was I.”

Police sirens reach their ears before she can come up with a reply. She shakes her head annoyed and starts walking towards the next block. A slight limp accompanies her first few steps, and Ash’s hand hovers behind her, not touching her but close enough to catch her should she stumble and fall. He lowers it when he’s sure enough that she won’t, and follows her in silence for a bit, turning his glance towards the rooftops. He feels lighter somehow, like some of the weight crushing his chest lifted, despite the thought of Agatha deceiving him and Lance for all those years still feeling like a poisonous thorn in his mind.

He laces his fingers behind the nape of his neck. “We make a good team.”

She scowls at him again. “We’re not—”

“—friends, yeah, yeah, I know. I didn’t say we are. But we worked well together in there, don’t you think?”

She doesn’t retort, just kicks a soda can off the curb, her shoulders tense. The police sirens blare closer, flashing red-blue lights faintly tinting the street from beyond the corner.

She pauses. “I won’t—” she starts, then stops, like it hurts her to say what she meant to say. She turns to look at him. “I can’t put your safety before mine. If it comes down to you or me, or you and my sisters—I can’t choose you.”

Ash shrugs one more time. “I never expected you to.”

She looks at him like she can’t believe he’s real and like she can’t stand him all at once, the red-blue police lights dancing lightly on her face. It occurs to him that she’s… captivating to look at in an unfamiliar way, a bubble of a thought rising unexpectedly from the back of his mind and popping just as fast. She seems about to say something, then shakes her head again, this time with a resigned sigh, and turns to resume walking. She doesn’t speak again until they reach her motorbike.

She leans onto the seat and breathes deeply, her face a little pale around the edges still. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she groans. She lets a couple moments pass, then turns back to him. Her lip catches briefly between her teeth. “Nobody knows anything about Agatha,” she says at last, smothering away some of the sharpness in her voice. “The Pokémon League, the police, the other gym leaders. She did what she needed to do extremely well. Nobody caught on it. It’s not your fault.”

Hearing it out loud when he hadn’t even let himself properly vocalize the thought shakes him slightly, as if exposing a vulnerability. “Yeah, well,” he says though, hiding the pang in his chest behind a stretched smile. He reaches to give Pikachu a ruffle, knowing that his partner’s feelings are often attuned to his own. “I know now. Guess we’ll have to start again from here.”

“It might not be just her. I don’t know everything Giovanni does. But I know Team Rocket is—Giovanni is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s everywhere.”

“That’s not news to me. I guess… I might just have underestimated exactly how everywhere is everywhere.”

Misty watches him, almost studying him curiously. “Do you still think we can do this? Take down Giovanni and the rest of the organization, even—knowing there might be a lot more to it than you thought?”

It only takes a moment of hesitation before the answer is clear in his mind.

“Yeah. Of course I do.”

She shakes her head a little and sighs, turning away from him. The body language of her boxing herself between her shoulders tells him she doesn’t share his confidence one bit. “You’re kind of unbelievable.”

“Unbelievably good? Yeah, I know, I get told that a lot.”

“Shut up.”

She pulls her helmet from under the seat. “Are you okay to drive?” Ash asks. “I can give you a ride on Charizard. He can carry us both.”

“I’m fine. Stop worrying.”

“Fine. Meet you back at my place then.”

The sirens have gone quiet. He turns back to the terminal while she starts the engine and takes a deep breath. He mostly just inhales car exhaust, but the thought of the captured pokémon being carried away to safety alleviates the lingering phantom ache in his chest, and he lets go of the tension he still held in his muscles, a gust of wind blowing his hair against his neck.

He can’t go back in time and change Lance’s fate. He can’t forget what he learned, either, nor shrink away from the weight of it. But he can keep his knees from buckling under that weight and keep walking the path Lance laid out to the end. He owes it to him even more now.

It’s never pointless. He helped those pokémon. He can help Misty, too, he’s sure. All of that is worth going on.

“We’re not done, huh?” he says to Pikachu. The pokémon nods, a bout of determined electric sparks saturating the air.

_“Hold still.”_

_He grits his teeth and breathes in sharply as Lance pulls a shard of glass from his bare shoulder. It clinks against the ceramic of the sink. Blood streaks it and the floor, a violent red against the cracked tiles. Ash’s ears still ring slightly from the explosion that caught them unprepared—they had the situation under control until the charges Team Rocket placed went off, taking the villa’s windows down on them. The grunts had an easy time escaping after that._

_Out of the corner of his eyes he sees the pliers approach again. “So—how did you end up deciding this was the job for you?” he asks, to take his mind off the oncoming pain._

_He can’t see Lance’s face, but he can still perceive a shift, like a blind shutting. There are things he knows Lance doesn’t like to talk about and this is one of them, so he doesn’t usually pry. He kinda thinks he earned something for almost becoming the world’s first human pin cushion though. The older man drops another piece of glass on the sink and lets out a sharp sigh._

_“Some part of it was the same reason you did. My travels took me all over the world, too, and I ran into Team Rocket many times. I saw many of their schemes unfold until eventually I couldn’t ignore it.”_

_“And the rest of it?”_

_Silence for a couple moments. “There was one time in particular,” Lance says at last. There’s a heaviness in his voice. “Maybe you heard about it on the news. Nah, you were too young, you probably wouldn’t have paid attention to that stuff.” Ash flinches as another shard is ripped from his flesh. “Hold still. It was at an event, an inauguration. I was there as a member of the Elite Four. A lot of affluent people were present, with their families. And Team Rocket was there as well. They intended to steal some priceless artifacts that were on display for the occasion.”_

_He puts down the pliers. “That was the last one, I think. This is going to burn.” He douses his shoulder with disinfectant and Ash grits his teeth again, holding a grunt behind them. “They placed explosives as a diversion, just like they did tonight. Part of the ceiling collapsed. Three people were crushed to death by the debris. One of them was a little girl.”_

_Ash’s stomach crumples to the size of a fist. Pikachu looks up at them from the floor, his brown eyes huge, flattening his ears on his head. “Her name was Amber,” the man continues. “I’ll never forget it. She was five years old. I tried to help, but it was already too late when we found her.”_

_He covers his wounds with a gauze. Shaken, for a moment Ash can only look at the floor, a breath halfway trapped into suddenly useless lungs. Lance stands and washes his hands in the sink, then undoes the piece of cloth he tied around his own arm as a makeshift bandage, exposing the deep gash left by a piece of glass._

_“It would still be a couple years before my path led me to joining the G-Men. I kept training to become stronger and made it to regional Champion first. But that was the moment I knew I had to do something to stop Team Rocket.”_

_A boulder still crushing his chest, Ash finds his shirt and slips it back on, deciding to worry about the blood stains and the tears later. “Do you need help with that?” he asks, rising to his feet as well._

_“I’ll manage, thank you.” Lance pours disinfectant on his arm, then loops a thread into a needle and begins to stitch up his own wound, sternly disguising a pained grimace. “I didn’t know for the longest time. But eventually, as a G-Man, I went back and spoke to the girl’s mother, in the hopes of learning some detail that could help me identify the ones directly responsible for what happened that day. I didn’t, but what I did learn is that the girl’s father had since gone missing. After her death he threw himself into his work. A scientist, he was, she refused to say more about what he was working on exactly. She left him. Eventually she learned that he had accepted a job offer from a mysterious sponsor. He completely cut contact with everyone since and disappeared into thin air with the rest of the crew. They were all pronounced dead.”_

_He cuts the thread and puts down the needle and the scissors. For a handful of moments he’s silent, his hands clasping the edge of the sink. “I tried looking into it, but it truly was as if they vanished. But I have reasons to suspect that the anonymous sponsor was Giovanni.”_

_“Giovanni?”_

_“Everything leads back to him. Every thread, every connection.” He shakes his head slightly, his shoulders squared and tense. “They were both his victims. He destroyed that man’s life, an accident though it may have been, then preyed on his grief and desperation and led him to his ruin.”_

_He turns abruptly to look at him. His face looks weathered, every line of it stretched taut. “You can still back out of this,” he tells him. “There’s nothing binding out to this job. No one would recognize you from it yet, or know about your involvement with the G-Men. You can still go back and live a normal life away from all of this.”_

_“I’m not backing out,” Ash retorts, firm. Lance studies him._

_“Are you certain? Even after what happened tonight?”_

_“That’s nothing.” His hand reaches for his shoulder. “I got hurt worse during my travels a few times.”_

_“Next time it could be worse.”_

_He doesn’t say it out loud, but what he means is: you could die. We both could. Ash swallows but only gives himself a second to process the untold warning._

_“I know. It doesn’t matter.”_

_Lance gives a “hm” and begins to clean up the mess. Ash helps, grabbing a rag Pikachu found for him. The anger building up in his chest shows in the increasingly aggressive strokes as he scrubs the bloodied floor._

_Lance’s words only strengthened his resolve. He’s going to stop Giovanni, whatever it takes. He’ll pay for everything._

He feels better after putting something in his stomach and crashing for a few hours of needed sleep, more energetic. “You weren’t worried I’d kill you in your sleep?” Misty asks, quirking an eyebrow at him as he smothers a yawn into his palm.

“Nah. Going the trouble of coming with me to the terminal to ensure I’d come back just to off me right after would be a terrible plan.” He smirks. “And besides, Pikachu wouldn’t give you an easy time for it. Right, Pikachu?”

He gives the pokémon’s head a scritch. She looks puzzled at him for a moment, like she’s trying to decipher him. She seems to give up and shakes her head, and watches him as he sits at the table and boots up her laptop, absentmindedly reaching for the coffee mug he left untouched earlier. “Gah, it’s cold.”

“Of course it’s cold, it’s been there since this morning. Hand it over.”

He hears the microwave running and a couple minutes later she places it back in front of him. “So what’s your plan now?” she asks, crossing her arms. He purses his lips.

“I’m working on it,” he says. He flips through the pages of her file, distractedly skimming over the names, locations, dates. “Do you have any way of knowing when Giovanni might be at the gym?”

“I don’t. I only know if he wants to meet me there, and usually it’s on a very short notice. I don’t imagine it’s often. Someone _might_ catch on it eventually.” She pauses for a second and when she speaks again there’s a weight to her voice. “And the next time he wants to meet me it’ll probably mean my time is up.”

“We’ll have something before then,” he promises, though he still doesn’t know how. Agatha’s name appears again on the screen. He stops and brings the coffee mug to his lips as he stares at it, thinking.

Misty told him Giovanni uses Agatha to meddle with the League. Most of the tentacles of his empire he and Lance managed to cut over the years were smaller, replaceable ones, despite their continued efforts; easily rebuilt as new ones emerged. But severing this connection would probably be a bigger blow. It would remove an important chunk of his influence, perhaps even push him to expose himself in order to regain it. And perhaps they could get some useful info out of someone that close to him, if they can get her to speak.

He realizes that at the root it’s personal; a desire to bring down Agatha for her act, and for what she might have done to Lance. But it’s still the closest he’s ever felt to reaching Giovanni.

“We’re going to frame Agatha,” he says out loud, determination brimming in his voice. “And maybe she’ll take us to him.”

“You can’t use this,” she reminds him with urgency. “I told you, you can’t bring this stuff to the police—”

“I won’t. I’ll find something else.”

She’s silent for a moment. “She won’t speak,” she says then. “Most of the organization is extremely loyal to Giovanni. She won’t say anything.”

“To the police, maybe.” Ash gives a small shrug. “But maybe she’ll speak to me. I know her. And Lance considered her a good friend. There’s gotta be a bit of humanity in her, I’m sure—I can reach it somehow.”

Another brief silence. “So how do you plan to get to her?”

“I’m thinking about it,” he answers. He stares at the information on the screen; his lips purse again a moment. “Maybe we’ll have to go to that gala event.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case someone is going to point it out: I know that in the anime Ash has actually met Giovanni. However, this is an AU, so not every aspect of canon is necessarily the same.
> 
> Amber might ring a bell if you've seen the "Birth of Mewtwo" short that functions as a prequel for the first movie. A cause for her death isn't given in the anime, so that's my doing. Her father is Dr. Fuji, the scientist who cloned Mewtwo and supposedly died with the rest of the crew as the lab was destroyed.


	5. V

“Is that the gym?”

He’s laid a blueprint on the table, several more scattered around as he impatiently discarded them. He tips his head in a nod.

“What do you have it for?” she asks, looking over his shoulder. Ash lifts his eyes to glance at her.

“Lance was… very methodical,” he explains. “He didn’t like to leave anything to chance if he could help it. He gave me an earful plenty of time for being too rash.” He laughs a bit, like he’s telling a fun anecdote, but it’s becoming easy to catch the soreness buried at the bottom of his eyes whenever the topic of his mentor comes up. “He had this stuff for most important buildings in Kanto and Johto. He had us study them whenever we were preparing for a mission so we’d know in advance what exactly we were getting into—you know, how many points of access a place had, if there was an easy escape, stuff like that.”

His focus shifts back to the paper. Pursing his lips, he studies the lines of the floor plan, looking from the large rectangle of the arena to the cluster of smaller rooms behind it. “Do you know where Giovanni’s office is?” he asks.

She leans closer to squint at it. Near the back entrance is the anteroom where she usually finds Matori expecting her. “…here, I think,” she says after a moment, touching her finger to one of the nearby rooms. He nods again and circles it with a pen, his forehead scrunched into a thoughtful expression.

Misty looks at him. “Are you going to tell me your plan or do you expect me to guess?”

“I’m gonna try and sneak in tonight and place a bug in his office,” he answers. He walks to one of the shelves and rummages through the pieces of tech. “With a bit of luck maybe we’ll catch him paying a visit.”

Her stomach twists at the idea of setting a foot back in there, even knowing that for once she wouldn’t find Giovanni’s contemptuous glance awaiting. Ash mutters to himself in frustration, distracting her from the thought before she can dwell on it for long: “Where—oh, yeah, there it is! Thanks, Pikachu.”

He comes back with a microphone he drops on top of the blueprint. Recognizing the same kind of tech she planted in his room in Pallet sparks a twinge of guilt, and she smothers it behind sealed lips and hopes he won’t read it on her face. He doesn’t turn to look at her, thankfully, and instead reaches for his tablet and swipes to unlock the screen, absorbed in his task.

She watches his fingers as he types the password.  _Pikachu#25._ She memorizes it despite feeling that she shouldn’t.

He tinkers with the device for a minute to connect the microphone and check that it works. Satisfied, he sets the tablet down and breathes in before turning to her.

“Listen,” he says. “Pikachu and I are going to tackle this one alone, alright?”

She frowns. “What?”

“It’s too risky to have you there.”

“Stop trying to decide for me—”

“I’m not, I’m just using common sense.” He looks at her. “Think about it for a second, will you? It’s not the mission itself that’s the risky part. We’ll be stepping right into Giovanni’s territory. I’m gonna disable the security cameras, but what if I miss one? What if he watches the footage, or we get caught in some other way? It doesn’t matter if he recognizes me, he knows who I am already, but what if he recognizes _you_ with me?”

He isn’t wrong—her unwillingness to appear reliant on him blindsided her for a hot minute. She looks away, hesitant to admit it. “Besides,” he adds, his voice slipping back into his usual carefree tone, “there’s no need. It’s gonna be a breeze, right, Pikachu?”

“Pika,” the pokémon nods, offering his chin as his trainer reaches for a scritch. Misty breathes out forcefully in a sigh.

“Fine then.”

“Great. Glad we’re on the same page.”

He pushes the tablet and the microphone aside and goes back to studying the blueprint. The stomach-churning feeling lingers still, and it takes her a few moments to connect it to its source: she doesn’t like the thought of him taking on the task alone either, uncomplicated as breaking into an empty office may be. It’s too close to Giovanni. She shoves the realization aside, irked by it.

He doesn’t seem to share her worry anyway. He keeps scribbling on the blueprint and tinkering with the microphone with that same focused glimmer in his eyes she saw over and again, like everything is just another challenge to him. It captivates and infuriates her at once. Some small, suppressed part of her aches to trust his inexplicable optimism while the rest of her  simmers wanting to grab him by the shoulders and scream at him that there’s no changing things and that he’ll die trying sooner than later, just like Lance, just like many others.

Once it’s dark out he gets ready to leave, slipping on neutral dark clothes without the identifying red R. “I’ll be back in a couple hours,” he promises, beaming a grin in her direction as he buckles his pokéball belt around his waist and tosses his jacket on. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” she retorts, turning her head away. She catches a slight sneer in his voice.

“I had no doubt. Come, Pikachu, let’s go. See ya!”

She keeps her lips pressed together and says nothing as he walks out and closes the door, this time without turning the keys to lock her in. His footsteps fade quickly into silence. Only after a couple more moments the words tumble out of her lips, said only to the empty room.

“Good luck.”

***

The topography of Viridian City is the same as always, with its arteries of light and the blinking windows of its apartment complexes as he’s seen plenty of times from above. Yet somehow something about it feels different now, unfamiliar and more hostile now that he’s gotten a peek behind a curtain of lies he didn’t know was there. He faces it head on, wind blowing in his hair and under Charizard’s wings.

It’s not long until the gym comes into sight. Silently, he slows Charizard down and directs it in a circle over it, studying the target before they land. The main entrance is shut for the night as expected, the trickle of the fountain at the feet of the marble staircases the only sound. But at the back a light’s on in one of the windows, and Ash purses his lips, slightly stumped. He counted on the gym being empty this late. Matching the shape of the building to the floor plan he memorized tells him it’s not the room Misty pointed out as the one used by Giovanni.

So it’s not him. Agatha, then, probably doing late hours. An itch overcomes him, tightening his hands into fists of rage; but he swallows down and holds the flames in. He’s not here to confront her. Not yet, with no proof of her involvement that he can use, at the risk of blowing his chance to frame her.

They land behind the gym, mindful to stay out of the reach of the security cameras on the perimeter. A brush of the pokéball at his belt recalls Charizard in a flash. Standing in the looming shadow cast by the building he exchanges a glance with Pikachu, a silent question mutually understood:  _ready?_

The pokémon nods. Ash turns back ahead, lowering his night vision goggles on his face.

He reaches into his pocket to activate the signal jammer. He’s got Team Rocket to thank for that trick: he figured it out by studying the way a bunch of grunts managed to come and go unnoticed from a surveilled parking lot. On the footage the disturbance should just look like the video freezing for a few seconds, giving him enough time to slip past the cameras uncaught.

One obstacle down. He presses his back against the wall of the gym, the rush of his heart a murmur in his ears.

Giovanni’s office should be right behind him. The light is only two windows over. He’ll have to be extra careful not to make any noise.

The blade of his pocket knife inserted between the window panes takes care of flipping the lock. A moment to check that the slight creaking of the hinges isn’t followed by any alerted noises, then he’s swinging his legs past the sill, Pikachu swiftly following on his tail.

The thick carpet swallows the sound of their steps.

Ash’s heartbeat hastens as it truly settles in that he’s standing in Giovanni’s personal space. He’s been in here; sat at the heavy hardwood desk, chosen the gaudy paintings in golden frames on the wall. In three years he’s never been anywhere near this close to him. Nobody has,  to his knowledge,  and his breath hitches in his dry throat for a moment as he feels the magnitude and the weight of it almost like vertigo, paralyzing and inebriating all at once.

Pikachu gives him a nudge, the meaning of it clear without need for words.  _Don’t waste time._ He nods and reaches into his pocket again for the microphone. After some careful consideration he elects to attach it behind the raised frame of one of the paintings, hoping it will be out of sight enough.

All they need now is just a bit of luck. For him to step into the office just once.

He hesitates then, running his eyes over the room again. He walks to the desk and runs his gloved fingers over the polished surface. His hand hovers over the knob of the drawer a few seconds, almost afraid to grasp it. He pulls it open at last: empty. He mouths a silent curse even though it’s what he should have expected—Giovanni’s certainly not s tupid enough to leave accessible sensitive material in a place he only uses sparingly. He still opens the next two as well, finding nothing but stationery and a couple of expensive cigars.

He scans his surroundings one more time. There’s some file cabinets along the walls, but when he tries opening them he finds them locked. It’s frustrating: he can almost feel his presence in the room, exuding from every corner and every piece of opulent art, and yet nothing proves it. It could be an office belonging to Agatha or to one of her assistants.

They should be getting out of there. He did what they came for. But the door beckons his glance.

“Pi?” Pikachu calls him in a whisper as he lays a hand on the doorknob. Hushing him, Ash listens to check that no one is on the other side. Then pushes the door open, as quietly as he can.

Recognizing the ornate hallways of the gym he remembers feels strangely dissonant, like some part of him still struggles to match the image of Agatha in his mind to the revelations of the past twenty-four hours. But there’s no denying them and he pushes forward, all of his senses alert as he carefully makes his way towards the light filtering from under one of the closed doors.

He lays an ear against the wood. From inside comes the soft rustling of paper. He’s not sure what he’s looking for; perhaps some strange personal satisfaction in at least confirming that she’s there, that the person who may be responsible for Lance’s death really is within his reach.

Pikachu’s teeth tug at the fabric of his pants, the message once again clear.  _Not now. Not yet. Come away._

From inside the room comes the scraping of the chair against the floor,  followed by the soft  _thump_ of a cane. Ash freezes, then pulls back at once and quickly retreats towards the office, his heart suddenly stumbling in his temples. He hears the door open as he dives behind Giovanni’s.

“Is someone there?”

It’s Agatha’s voice. The doorknob slips from his fingers as he tries to softly push the door closed, slamming it against the doorframe with a thud that feels louder than gunshot in the silent building. Muttering a curse, he quickly scans the room to ensure that he didn’t leave anything out of place and hurries back to the window, Pikachu right behind him as he leaps past the sill. He ducks out of view right as he hears the door open.

Silence. No doubt Agatha’s eyes have zeroed on the open window. He holds his breath, his back pressed to the outside wall of the gym.

Wind rises against them in a gust. It slips inside the room and slams the windowpanes against the wall:  _thud._ Silence for a few moments still, then the soft creaking of the hinges.

“Someone must have left it open,” says Agatha’s voice, directly above their heads. He can almost feel her eyes scanning the empty courtyard: if she were to just lean outside slightly she’d no doubt see them. The itch to stand and face her right there and then overcomes him again, and he digs his nails into his palms through the gloves to resist it, a pang seizing his lungs as he holds his breath still not to make the slightest noise.

Agatha closes the window. He breathes out, his muscles relaxing against the wall.

Pikachu reprimands his imprudence with a scowl. He smiles sheepishly and pats his head in an apology, mouthing an  _I’m sorry._

They did what they came for, despite the close call. The microphone is set. Now all they need is a stroke of luck on their side.

Through the next day on the other end of the microphone there’s only silence.  _Patience_ , he reminds himself, though growing frustration crackles at the back of his mind.

They listen for a while. “Why were you in trouble?” Ash asks eventually, stretching back on the chair to alleviate the stiffness setting in his muscles. Misty glances up towards him.

“Huh?”

“You said you were already in trouble. When you agreed to work with me.” He looks at her with curiosity. “But you seem to be a good battler, and you said the last time Giovanni spoke to you was on April 26. Which means it only took you days to find me. You seem pretty good at your job.”

She turns away and for a few moments Ash thinks she won’t answer. He lets the question go, not wanting to press further. But at last she lets out a sigh.

“Sometimes I didn’t… do what Giovanni wanted,” she admits. “It’s not like I _couldn’t_. I just—didn’t want to.”

“Like you didn’t want to shoot me?”

There’s an affirmation in her silence. “I hoped they’d look like mistakes,” she says at last. “I should have known he wouldn’t have bought it for long.”

Ash’s heart squeezes in empathy a bit. He’s not sure what to say that wouldn’t sound like an empty promise to her right now, and he hesitates, chewing at his bottom lip. It’s Pikachu who takes it upon himself to fill the awkward pause and jumps from the table into her lap.

“What the—” She stiffens, startled. Ash’s lips perk up in a grin.

“He likes you. I told you, he’s friendly when people aren’t trying to kill me.”

Her fingers linger in the air for a moment, unsure. Then cautiously lower to brush the pokémon’s yellow fur, a hint of a smile spreading to her face as Pikachu offers his head for more scritches. The cramp in Ash’s chest gives way as he watches them, replaced by a sort of warmth as once again it feels like he was granted a peek as a softer, hidden side of her, like when he gave her pokéballs back.

They go back to listening to the silence, Pikachu now nestled on her knees. In the evening he grabs his jacket and takes Charizard for a quick recon, just in case; but there’s nothing suspicious around the gym, no black old school cars parked nearby and no unusual lights on. Just the one in Agatha’s office, taunting him.

He takes the long way around on his way back, flying over Butch and Cassidy’s laundering front masqueraded as a pokémon pension. It’s bolted shut, a rusty  _CLOSED_ sign at the entrance. A frown creases his brow as they fly back to the hideout.

The next day they’re back to more useless listening. Ash flips through the pages of the file on Misty’s laptop, biting the inside of his cheek as the date of the gala draws nearer.

“What are you doing now?” Misty asks, seeing him reach for his pokégear. He turns.

“I got an idea,” he answers. “Remember those… acquaintances of mine I mentioned? I want to ask them a couple questions. Maybe they’ll have something helpful.”

“Think it’ll be worth the time?”

He shrugs as he dials the number. “Giovanni did leave them in charge of the gym once. And it’s not like we’ve got much to do here anyway, is it?”

“Why are we here exactly?”

Ash lays back in the booth a little, letting out a small sigh. “They’re… a little weird. This is their idea of being discreet, I guess.”

She gives him a deadpan look through the lens of the sunglasses concealing her eyes. “It’s a terrible idea.”

“Oh, I know.”

They’re both silent for a bit. Pikachu sniffs at the ketchup packets on the table until he opens one for him and lets him go at it. Misty purses her lips, thoughtful; then turns to look at him again.

“How did you guys get here?” she asks. “I mean—how did you go from kicking their asses so many times with your Pikachu that they became the laughing stock of all of Team Rocket for it to relying on them as your informers? Did you do the same thing you did with me?”

He lifts one eyebrow. “What  _thing_ did I do with you?”

She looks away. “You know what I mean. The way you got me to work with you.”

“Hm. Not exactly, I guess? It wasn’t really intentional, it just… sort of happened. We ran into each other a lot of times. And I mean a _lot_ of times.” Exasperation escapes from his lips in a tired exhale at the memory alone. “Eventually I guess… we sort of reached some kind of truce. I still don’t trust them fully, but I don’t think they’d do me harm.”

His glance wanders as he thinks back on the few times they ended up joining forces against some worse enemy, even long before he knew anything about the G-Men. The times he saw anguish on their faces too when they felt a line was crossed. “I think deep down they don’t like Team Rocket all that much, either. Not every part of it at least,” he says. “They have a loyalty to it. But I think they’re not bad people.”

There’s a rustling in the booth at the back of theirs. He glances back to see the purple and magenta of the top of their heads. Next to him Pikachu lifts his attention from the ketchup packet to stare at them with a hint of lingering suspicion, small sparks igniting around his red cheeks.

“‘Evening, twerp,” says James. “Who’s your friend?”

He can feel Misty glaring. “She’s… a coworker.”

She looks at their booth and then at him. “You realize that this is more noticeable than if we all just sat at the same table, right?”

“I do. Just let them believe it’s not.”

“If you’re done talking about us like we aren’t right here—” Jessie inserts herself in the conversation, her tone a bit too shrill for the setting “—let’s cut to the chase. What do you want?”

Ash breathes in. “Information. Were you guys aware that Giovanni has an office here in Viridian?”

“You mean the gym?” James answers after a pause. “Yeah. ‘Course.”

Ash’s fist tightens on a napkin on the table. “You knew and it never once occurred to you to mention it to me?”

“You never asked. We aren’t mind readers.”

He breathes in and out again, slowly. It’s par for the course with them: they’ll answer his questions—sometimes—but routinely fail to volunteer information on their own, no matter how glaringly obvious that it’s information he could use. He’s never been entirely sure if it’s whatever loyalty they have to the organization holding them back or if they’re just that dumb. The first time he turned to them as a source was after Lance’s accident, though, so he can’t put that on them.

“Have you even been in there?” he asks with a sigh. There’s a moment of silence.

“Not… really,” James says at last. Ash shakes his head.

“What does _not really_ mean? Yes or no?”

Silence again. “We’ve… been avoiding the boss for quite some time,” Jessie admits at last. “He, huh. Didn’t have very kind words for us the last time.”

“Yeah, I believe they were ‘the next time I see your faces again you better have accomplished something significant or so help me’,” Meowth deadpans.

He lets out another sigh. “So I suppose you’ve got nothing that would prove his presence at the gym, or any way of knowing when he might be there, right?”

“You suppose well.”

Misty arches her eyebrows without commenting. He drops his head in defeat. “Fine. I’ve got something else to ask you before you leave. You guys know Butch and Cassidy, right?”

Jessie just about chokes herself on her spit. “Why would even bring up those—those—”

She stops realizing that her outburst turned a few heads. Misty hides her face in her hands.

“I _told you_ ,” she hisses. Ash offers an apologetic smile before turning back to them, serious again.

“I have… reasons to think they might be planning to get back at me in some way,” he says, the memory of the attempted ambush still vivid in his head. “If you guys happen to hear from them, or about them, in any way—I need you to let me know immediately, okay? Can I trust you with this?”

Another pause. “I suppose,” Jessie says then, a shrug apparent in her tone.

“Great.” At least perhaps this wasn’t a complete waste of time. “Thanks.”

Misty looks at him. “So what now?” she asks, lowering her voice not to be heard by the three sat behind them. He thinks about it for a moment, pursing his lips, then sighs again.

“I guess I’m out of options. If nothing comes up on the recording soon enough we’ll have to go to that gala.” 

“How are we getting in?”

“I’m a former Champion and a government official, remember? It’s not too hard to obtain invites to a formal event.” He pulls his lips into a slight smirk. “I hope you have some nice clothes.”

***

The air feels palpably tense as they get ready to leave for Saffron, the oncoming endeavor looming. Misty buckles on her pokéball belt, then hesitates, her glance falling on the holster with her gun on a corner of the nightstand. In the end she picks it up and loads the bullets Ash took out back into the magazine, her forehead creased into a frown. Ash eyes her as she clips the holster to her belt.

“You’re taking that?”

“It could come in handy,” she shrugs. She prods when he raises his eyebrows slightly and says nothing: “Is that a problem?”

“I’m not gonna tell you what to do,” he says, turning to grab his jacket from the chair, but she catches a thin disgruntled tinge in his voice. She tilts her head, watching him for a moment.

“You never use weapons, do you?”

Ash glances back at her. “Hm?”

“I took a look around. You have all sorts of stuff in here, but not a single weapon, unless we count that pocket knife. At first I thought maybe you hid them from me, but… that’s not right, is it? You really don’t have any.”

“Not a fan, no,” he admits with a smirk. “My pokémon are more than enough to defend myself.”

She lays a hand on the holster, feeling… not exactly guilt, but the weight of it tangible against her hip, contrasted by the strikingly stupid image of him jumping headfirst into a ruthless criminal organization’s schemes with only his pokémon and nothing else to rely on should they fail him. The very fact that he’s still alive defies all odds, though she’s hardly surprised anymore. “…I’ll take mine,” she says anyway. “Just in case.”

He gives a shrug. “Told you, I’m not gonna tell you what to do. Ready to go?”

She nods and reaches for her windbreaker. He grabs the backpack with their stuff and lets Pikachu climb on his shoulder and they head outside, and she waits as he locks the door of the hideout. It’s barely morning, the city around them silent in the grayish light of early dawn.

They’ve agreed on her driving them to Saffron. It’s too long a trip for Charizard, especially carrying them both. She fastens on her helmet and hops onto her motorbike, nodding for him to take a seat behind her.

His arms go straight around her waist this time. There’s the slightest stumble in her chest as he grasps onto her, and she ignores it categorically, her eyes set on the street.

“Hold on tight,” she reminds him and Pikachu as she gives gas.

They’re in Saffron City around sunset. She can feel Ash’s muscles relax as he lets go of her, a breath escaping his lungs to brush her neck like he’d been holding it the whole time. “We made it,” he says with what sounds like relief, giving Pikachu a ruffle as he hops off. Misty glances at him as she takes off the helmet.

“You say it like it’s unbelievable.”

“That you didn’t crash us, yeah, it kinda is.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve never crashed,” she informs him. She secures the motorbike to a railing; then turns, facing Saffron’s skyscrapers and neon signs. Her throat tightens slightly as her glance runs over the skyline and the last few rays of sunlight shining behind it, outlining the buildings against the orange-blue gradient of the sky.

“My journey ended here,” she says. It comes out of her naturally, taking her almost by surprise: she’s not used to sharing details about herself or her past, much less unprompted. Ash gives her a curious look.

“Huh?”

“My pokémon journey. When I was ten.” She can feel her lips stretch into a shadow of a melancholic smile. “I had just arrived in Saffron when I got a call from my sister informing me that our father had died. I went home for the funeral and then never traveled again. I’d fantasized so much about battling Sabrina. I never did.”

He’s silent for a few moments. “Maybe you will,” he says at last. Misty glances at him.

“What do you mean?”

“Once we put Giovanni behind bars.” He matches her smile with a brighter, genuine one, radiating optimism like a sun. “You could travel again. Pick up things where you left them off, face the rest of the gyms and the League. Maybe become the next Kanto Champion, who knows.”

For a second there’s a part of her that desperately wants his words to be true. A part of her that wants to hold tightly onto the faintest glimmer of hope, buried so deep inside her she didn’t even know it was there until he stirred the ashes. For a second only; she smothers it before it can burn any brighter and looks away, the back of her eyes suddenly stinging a bit. “It sounds like a nice story.”

He looks at her. “But you believe it, at least a little bit,” he prods. She shakes her head.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re here trying, aren’t you?”

The question leaves her stumped for a moment. He doesn’t press further, and instead turns towards the busy street and laces his fingers behind the nape of his neck, stretching his back. “Well,” he says “about time we get to work, huh?”

She gives a slightly dazed nod, her mind caught in the conversation just for a second longer before she shelves it and regains her focus. The back of the Silph Co. headquarters is visible from where they’re standing, the sunset sky reflecting in the mirrored windows above the nearby buildings. Unsuspecting, seen from there; just another puzzle piece of the city, rising tall between its many skyscrapers in the dwindling light. Her eyes trail it briefly as they turn away.

They find a public restroom and split the contents of the backpack. Behind one of the stall doors Misty tosses her windbreaker onto the coat hanger and changes out of her t-shirt and shorts into the blue cocktail dress: it was a disguise, worn during an operation that saw her team tasked with stealing the pokémon of rich party guests, and her stomach squeezes faintly at the memory as the sheen fabric slips over her bare skin. She did nothing that once to hinder the success of the plan; she was in training still and the dress hid the bruises from the last time the drill sergeant was displeased with her. She spat a  _yes, sir_ and followed the orders, and later dug her nails into her flesh until it was raw to stop thinking about it.

The skirt gathers in ruffles to a split on the left side, and on the right she hides her gun, slipping the barrel into her garter. Her pokéballs, too, clipping them to the hook. The ruffles conceal everything well enough when she lets the fabric fall.

She steps into high heeled shoes and then out of the stall, gathering her clothes up in a bundle. In front of the mirror by the sinks she undoes her ponytail and combs through her hair with her fingers to roll it up behind her head in her best approximation of an elegant updo. She hesitates a moment, looking at her unfamiliar reflection with pursed lips, then traces her eyes with a line of eyeliner and spreads a touch of blush on her cheeks. She stares at the result with pause.

She remembers calling herself beautiful over and again until she believed it to drown out her sisters’ relentless teasing, but it’s been so distant from her thoughts for so long that she mostly just feels a disconnect at the sight of herself dolled up. Maybe in a different life the young woman in the mirror is invited to a gala as herself, as an influential trainer, maybe even as a Champion. A nice story indeed.

There’s a soft knock on the door. “Ready?” Ash’s voice asks.

She hesitates a second still. “Yeah,” she sighs then.

He blinks at her as she walks out of the women’s bathroom, his mouth slightly agape like he was going to speak but his words failed him. Misty frowns.

“What?”

His hand nervously reaches to rub the back of his neck. “Nothing. You, huh—you look good.”

A vague rush of heat in her cheeks, Misty looks him up and down as well, a bit taken aback by the unusual sight of him in a formal suit. It doesn’t quite fit him, nor does the hair hastily slicked back; but he doesn’t look  _bad_ , either. “You… too,” she ends up mumbling, lowering her eyes towards the floor and Pikachu. It bothers her how the words feel clumsy in her mouth.

He pulls the body mic from the backpack and clips it behind the lapel of his suit. “Hopefully we’ll get something that incriminates her,” he says, going over the plan again as he makes sure that it’s well hidden from sight. “I’ve spoken to Officer Jenny and arranged that anyone I might turn in tonight will be brought to the Viridian police station rather than the one here in Saffron. I want this to be handled by someone I’m certain I can trust.”

They leave their casual clothes and the backpack in the seat compartment of her motorbike. “Do you have the invites?” she asks. He lifts the envelope with a grin.

“Former Kanto Champion Ash Ketchum and a plus one,” he says. His face turns more serious then. “You know I don’t _have_ to bring a plus one though, right? Pikachu and I can do this one alone too if you’d rather stay out of it.”

“And waste this look for nothing? Forget about it.”

“I’m serious. You could be recognized.”

“I’m serious too.” She looks at him. “Agatha is going to let several Rockets into the building. You might have to face against all of them, not to mention her, an Elite Four member. I’m not going to sit here and wait to find out if you die. I’ll blend with the guests easily dressed like this.”

He shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the hardest situation we’ve gotten ourselves out of,” he boasts. Pikachu hops onto his shoulder, perching on his habitual spot. “But fine, if it’s what you want. Let’s get going then.”

He shows the invites at the entrance. His naturally genuine disposition makes the doorman not even look at them twice before stepping aside to let them in, and in a moment they’ve crossed from the lobby into the already packed hall. Misty’s heart hammers slightly in her temples over the pleasant background music as they look around.

The guests—wealthy shareholders of the company and potential sponsors of Silph Co.’s tech—are mostly engaged in idle chatter around the impeccably set tables. A few well known faces she recognizes: gym leaders and Elite Four members, influential figures of Kanto. Hi-tech screens on the walls show the Silph logo and cycle through a preview of the company’s latest innovations, setting up for the presentations scheduled to happen later in the evening.

She doesn’t see Agatha. She scans the crowd on edge, looking for a glimpse of her graying blonde hair.

Team Rocket’s plan is straightforward enough. Agatha will usher a few Rockets disguised as guests into the building, eluding the surveillance with ease. Taking advantage of the gala as a distraction the squad will sneak to the upper floors and get their hands on the pieces of tech Giovanni is after, then create a diversion to leave.

Their plan is even more clear-cut. Keep track of the events as they unfold and hopefully catch Agatha in the act.

Ash exchanges a few passing words and a few  _long time no see_ with some guests who recognize him, cordial but cut short. Against her best intentions she finds herself wondering if some part of him feels the same longing she did when she looked in the mirror: for his presence at this event to be in earnest, as a guest and not as an undercover agent. For the ability to stop and catch up with acquaintances he likely hasn’t spoken to in over two years. For a normal life.

It’s not really her business. Yet she feels a touch of the same melancholy she did earlier, as she told him about her abandoned dreams.

“Have you seen Agatha?” he asks her in a whisper, managing to excuse himself away from a conversation attempt and reach her. She shakes her head, her eyes back to scouring the room.

“Not yet.”

She holds her focus despite the chatter and the music filling her ears. The flashes of a couple photographers’ cameras catch her eye and she turns away abruptly, her mouth drying up at the idea of her picture possibly ending up on some newspaper. She accepts a glass of champagne from a tray offered by a waiter and holds it in front of her face like a shield, pretending to drink as she continues to look.

Near the feet of the presentation stage she spots another familiar face: Lorelei, a member of the Elite Four. Someone she desperately wished to meet once, in a past that might as well be another life. And next to her—

Her breath pauses in her chest as her eyes lock on the target. She gives Ash’s arm a nudge.

He follows her glance to where Agatha is standing, talking to another guest. She can sense the shift as he tenses up, and instinctively holds one hand in front of him a little, as if to hold him back from doing something rash. He doesn’t; and instead he exchanges a knowing look with Pikachu and steps aside, trying to discreetly move closer through the crowd.

“Champion Ash Ketchum?”

He jumps a bit and turns to find a starry-eyed reporter holding a microphone to his face. Misty can see his jaw tighten as he tries to figure out how to politely ditch her, his eyes trying not to lose track of Agatha, but he resigns himself to a smile:

“ _Former_ Champion, but yep, that’s me. If you’ll excuse me, I was—”

“Just a couple questions and I’ll let you go. You’ve been extremely elusive since you stepped down from your position two years ago. What brings you here tonight?”

Misty abandons him to the impromptu interview and turns to move towards Agatha herself before they lose sight of her. The crowd shifts, blocking her view for a second. She bites her lip and cranes her neck: when she sees her again Agatha is turning, still chatting with the other guest but moving away from the stage. She hastens her steps, a couple of  _excuse me’_ s dropped in her trail.

More camera flashes stop her dead in her tracks. She lowers her head on her champagne glass, her heart a thunder.

She can’t see Agatha anymore. She scours the crowd frantically, trying to slip past a group of guests.

“Excuse me—”

The other guest is talking to Lorelei. For a moment she catches a glimpse of Agatha’s purple dress again; then she disappears, the group closing in to block her from sight.

Ash reaches her, slightly out of breath. “Where did she go?”

“I lost her.” She keeps looking, scanning one face after another. “She went that way I think. Towards the entrance.”

The lights of the hall dim gently as a spotlight illuminates the stage, where a speaker has stepped to read a program of the evening. Misty bites down on her lip harder.

A glimpse of purple disappearing towards the lobby. Ash notices it at the same time and speeds in that direction, squeezing between the guests.

They reach her at the entrance, conversing amicably with the doorman. Ash stops and stands by, careful to remain out of her line of sight. Starstruck at being approached by such a high-profile guest, the doorman barely turns his glance as a man and a woman hastily show their invites and handwaves them in.

Misty doesn’t recognize them. But she recognizes their focused, guarded air. She elbows Ash, but the frown on his face tells her he’s thinking the same already.

She can see the muscles of his jaw tighten in frustration and guesses his next thought as well. This isn’t incriminating enough. Talking to the doorman isn’t enough to prove Agatha’s involvement.

“We need more,” he whispers in fact, shaking his head as Agatha holds the man’s attention with praise for the event’s organization. Misty eyes him.

“Do you have something in mind?”

He purses his lips, thinking for a moment. “I’m gonna interfere with their plan,” he says. “If Agatha steps in to help them we’ll have her.”

The guests in the hall applaud the speaker. Some have sat at the tables, but many are still standing and the crowd and the dimmed lights make it easy for the newcomers to slip unnoticed towards one of the side doors leading to the upper floors of the buildings. Two more people come in through the entrance: two men this time, both with the same telling intent look as the first two.

Ash and Pikachu exchange a glance. Like a dart the pokémon bolts between the guests’ legs, speeding towards the Rockets at the side door. The speaker elicits another round of applause. The noise of the door being forced open is drowned by the commotion.

Pikachu reaches them. He leaps past them and the sill and stands blocking their way, yellow sparkles flying around his cheek in the dark.

“I’d stop there if I were you,” Ash warns, coming up behind them. Misty can see the gears briefly turn in the Rockets’ heads as they turn: feign innocence or fight. Ash lifts one of his pokéballs, his thumb stopping on the release button.

They choose to fight.

“Golbat, go!”

“Weezing!”

A clamor  begins to rise around them as the guests start to notice that something’s going on. Ash sends out his Staraptor to take on the enemy pokémon in a sweep, turning back to check if Agatha is doing anything. The flying pokémon’s talons slash at the Golbat, then it pirouettes in the air to target the Weezing with an aerial ace, slamming it against the wall  with little effort.

“What’s going on?” comes from the crowd as more and more heads start to turn. Ash reaches into his jacket for his G-Man badge and holds it in their general direction as the Weezing manages to haul itself back in the air.

“Intruders. I’m here to stop them.”

More pokémon pop out of the Rockets’ pokéballs. Misty reaches under the skirt of her dress for one of hers too, holding it in her palm ready to intervene. Staraptor  is holding its ground well against the multiple opponents.  A Zubat manages to get close only to be promptly snagged by Pikachu’s thunderbolt.

“Night shade.”

A sudden purpleish glow seizes Staraptor. A moment; then it plummets to the ground, motionless. Misty spins on her heels. A glimpse of purple at the back of the crowd.

The Weezing engulfs them in a smokescreen. She raises an arm to her face to shield herself and sends out her Staryu to face it, squinting at her surroundings. The toxic smoke brings tears to her eyes and scorches her nostrils.

Some of the guests are stepping up to join the fight. Lorelei’s Dewgong; someone’s Skarmory. The Rockets’ pokémon fall easily, outnumbered and outpowered.

“Dream eater.”

She spins again towards the raspy voice as a shadow appears out of nowhere to swallow Dewgong. Again: a glimpse of Agatha’s dress behind the commotion, a split second of an afterimage-like silhouette of a Gengar, so brief she’s not actually sure she saw it. She stands in the crossfire a second, trying to locate the woman again. She doesn’t see the Arbok behind her until she hears the command of a poison sting.

Time freezes as the darts fly towards her. Then there’s arms grasping her her waist, tossing her to the ground and out of the way of the attack. She topples to her back and Ash falls on top of her with a grunt.

For a moment she can only lie stunned, his face against her shoulder and his hair in her face as her heart hammers in her temples. Then he groans and pulls himself to his knees, a pained grimace contorting his features only for a second before it turns to a mixture of relief and concern.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” she manages to exhale. And then: “Are you?”

He gives a hasty nod. She props herself onto her elbows and sits up, turning her head to look around.

“I saw Agatha. She used her Gengar to take down your Staraptor and Lorelei’s Dewgong.”

He looks as well, his eyes running over the crowd. She shoves him upwards.

“Go look for her. I’ll hold the Rockets with the rest of the guests.”

He hesitates. “Go!” she urges, and he nods again and stands, his eyes lingering on her a moment still to make sure she’s okay before he disappears among the crowd with Pikachu on his tail. She catches sight of a tear in his suit’s sleeve as he turns, but he’s gone before her sudden concern can reach him.

She pulls herself to her feet. Staryu is still standing, and she spurs it raising a fist in the air: “Staryu! Use your water gun against that Arbok!”

Staryu’s attack blasts the opponent. When she looks around again she sees neither Agatha nor Ash. Her mind stumbles on the thought of him tossing himself at her, putting his own body between hers and the attack.

“Well done Staryu, now finish it with a rapid spin!” she commands, as Arbok staggers with a pained hiss. And then, silently: _good luck._

***

Ash’s eyes scour the hall, frantically almost. He squeezes between the guests as the fight goes on behind him. He saw Agatha’s night shade take down Staraptor, of course; but when he turned around the crowd hid her from his glance, closing around him like a thick curtain.

It’s only by a hair that he catches a flash of movement beyond the door, at the end of the off-limits hallway on the other side of it. One of the Rockets, perhaps, or perhaps Agatha herself, taking advantage of the distraction to take the task into her own hands. He  takes the chance and  speeds in that direction without thinking twice.

His footsteps echo in the empty hallway.

He sees her as soon as he turns the corner at the intersection. She moves slowly enough, between her old age and her cane, and she doesn’t try to escape when she hears him approach. She just stops, aware of his presence behind her.

He swallows. His throat is dry.

“Agatha,” he says out loud. The insulated walls muffle the sounds of the battle, leaving them in almost silence.

There’s a pause, then she turns, slowly. Her eyes look him up and down. Her dark irises are hard, like sharp black stones.

“So you’re Lance’s little protege, I suppose,” she says. “I knew he was training someone. He never made a name.”

Hearing Lance’s name from her mouth snags Ash’s breath from him. For a moment he can only look at her, a flame of rage swelling deep within him, consuming everything. “Why?” is all he can eventually muster.

He’s not sure what he’s trying to ask, exactly. Why is she working for Team Rocket. Why did she keep it from Lance for all those years despite their friendship. Why, if it really was her, did she betray him.

She doesn’t answer. Instead she looks at him almost with sadness and breathes out in a sigh. “I remember you well,” she tells him. “A very fine, promising young trainer. It’s a real shame.”

A pokéball falls into her palm. Her thumb touches the release button: “Gengar.”

“Pikachu!” Ash instructs, as the evanescent shape of the ghost materializes between them. A twinge of pain in his right arm distracts him, and he turns his head, only now noticing the tear in his sleeve just below his shoulder. The poison sting, he remembers, muttering a curse. But he dismisses it without a second thought—it’s barely a scratch, hopefully not enough for much of Arbok’s poison to have gotten into his system, and he doesn’t have the time to worry about it anyway.

“Use double team, Gengar,” Agatha commands wasting no time. Shadows form at the ghost’s sides and solidify into copies of its body, enclosing Pikachu in a circle. Ash balls his hands into fists:

“Don’t let it confuse you, Pikachu! Jump and use your electroweb to trap them from above!”

“Gengar, target it with a shadow ball!”

Pikachu leaps in the air, electricity condensing in a bright sphere on his tail while the illusion ghosts around him open their mouths impossibly wide to vomit orbs of pitch black energy, each a bloodcurdling mirror of the other. The electric sphere opens in a net, descending over the circle and dispelling the illusion as only the real Gengar is caught; and the shadow balls disappear with them leaving only the true one which Pikachu manages to avoid with a dash to the side. It leaves a scorched mark on the marble floor.

Gengar shakes off the effects of the electric attack easily enough, staggering only for a few moments. “Well done, Pikachu,” Ash doesn’t let it deter him “now hit it with an iron tail!”

A sharp pang accompanies the movement of his arm as he pumps his fist in the air in emphasis. He grits his teeth, pushing it at the back of his mind. “Gengar, avoid it and counter with night shade,” Agatha hits back.

The ghost flickers out of sight, sending the glowing lightning bolt of Pikachu’s tail to collide with the floor. It spawns back into existence at Pikachu’s left, its eyes shining a reddish purple; and a beam engulfs Pikachu’s body, drawing a pained cry out of him.

“Fight it, Pikachu! Don’t give up!”

Pikachu’s head snaps back up. He faces Gengar with bared teeth; and despite the energy binding him manages to charge forward, tackling the ghost as electricity discharges from his body. Ash’s breath heaves slightly, his mind fogging at the edges as pain shoots through his arm again despite his efforts to remain focused. Sparks fly and Gengar is bounced back by the attack, taking visible damage this time, its hold on Pikachu broken.

The two pokémon face each other, both weakened but both still standing. Residual sparkles fly from Pikachu’s cheeks.

“Pikachu—”

But a slugginess weighs his voice down and Agatha’s rises above it, quicker: “Use dream eater, Gengar.”

A shadow drops on Pikachu, draining the energy from his body as an agonized cry leaves him. He’s left to tumble to the ground with no strength left, and Ash curses under his breath and reaches for Charizard’s pokéball at his belt.

Agatha’s glance lifts to him. So does Gengar’s, at once, almost as if joined by a mind link.

Gengar’s shadow falls over him. Ash’s chest seizes as the dream eater squeezes his breath and his energy out of him; black fills the edges of his vision. The pokéball slips from his fingers and clatters to the ground.

“As I said,” Agatha’s voice reaches him, coming from far away “a real shame.”

His knees hit the floor. He struggles to hang onto his consciousness, hands white knuckled against the marble tiles. He catches a glimpse of Agatha’s shoes, the purple hem of her dress, as they fade into darkness while his labored pulse floods his ears.

He tries to hold onto the thought of Lance. He can’t give up, not until he knows. But it slips from his fingers too, dispelling like mist.

With a desperate growl Pikachu manages to lift himself to his feet and hurl himself at Gengar. The last of his electric power erupts from him in a strained effort. The grip of the life-draining attack releases Ash, and he half-collapses to the ground as Gengar staggers and finally falls, the thundershock a final blow to its already weakened body.

Pikachu collapses as well, exhausted. Agatha stands impassible with an unimpressed hum.

“Return, Gengar,” she calls. And then: “I suppose I’ll have to finish the job myself.”

She reaches into her purse, and when Ash manages to lift his head he finds himself staring at a gun. He looks into the barrel’s blind eye, a cold sweat breaking over him.

( _The next person won’t hesitate,_ Misty told him.)

“At least—” he squeezes out of his chest among gasps “At least tell me why. Why are you—doing this...?”

“My loyalties are none of your concern,” she retorts, her dark eyes hardened and cold. Ash shakes his head, managing to pull himself back to his knees.

“Lance,” he says. “At least just tell me this. You’re gonna kill me anyway so—it doesn’t matter, does it? Tell me if it was you who ratted him to Giovanni.”

A crease deepens at the center of her brow. “A real shame, as well,” she replies. “But someone had to do it. He was starting to be too big an inconvenience. Just like you.”

Her finger contracts on the trigger. Ash shuts his eyes, waiting for the blow.

But instead he hears the  _ta-clack_ of a cocked gun. “Put it down,” Misty’s voice reaches his ears.

Agatha freezes. Ash’s heart swells as he turns: Misty is standing behind him, her gun aimed at the older woman, a fire burning in her green eyes like smoldering embers.

“Put it _down_ ,” she says again. “I won’t say it a third time.”

Agatha hesitates a moment. Then crouches to lay her gun on the floor, slowly. Misty nods her head to it.

“Now kick it away from you.”

She complies. Misty keeps the gun on her, unsatisfied still.

“Your pokéballs and the bag too.”

She does. But she looks at her then, a hint of a smirk curling the corner of her lips. “I recognize you,” she says, and Ash can see the color drain slightly from Misty’s face. “I saw you at the gym. I’m sure Giovanni will be thrilled to know you’re a traitor.”

“You won’t have the chance to tell him,” he cuts her off. He hauls himself to one knee, holding onto the wall. “You’re headed straight for the police station. Ivysaur, hold her.”

The pokémon materializes between them as the pokéball finds its way into his hand, and its vines wrap tightly around Agatha’s body, trapping her in place. “Oh, he will find out,” she says anyway, the sharp coldness of her glance unwavering still. “He always does eventually.”

“We’ll just have to get to him first,” he retorts. He reaches under the lapel of his suit and holds out the microphone. “Thanks for the confession, by the way.”

Her face darkens, a grimace flashing on her features. He wishes he felt satisfaction. He got what they came for: an admission of guilt in her own voice, more than enough to frame her. Yet there’s only a somber, bitter feeling, nestled in his stomach like a cold pit.

He stands and staggers, his knees trying to buckle under the weight of his body. Misty catches him.

“Are you alright?”

“I will be,” he assures her. He steadies himself against the wall and limps to Pikachu, relief washing over him when his touch stirs him. “You okay, buddy?”

The pokémon answers with a weak nod. Ash scoops him into his arm and gives his fur a ruffle, then grabs his pokégear from his pocket. He turns to Misty.

“I’m gonna call Officer Jenny,” he tells her. “You should leave. They might want to hold the guests for a statement.”

“Will you be okay?” she asks, hesitation in her voice. “You look—roughed up.”

“I will,” he promises. “I’ll head to the pokémon center next to get Pikachu and Staraptor checked. We can meet there if you want.”

She lingers a moment still, then turns to leave. Ash waits long enough for her to be safely out of the building. Then dials the familiar number, lifting the pokégear to his ear under Agatha’s spiteful glance.

“Officer Jenny,” comes the answer, prompt as ever. He breathes out in a sigh.

“Agent K here.”

Nurse Joy takes Pikachu and Staraptor’s pokéball into her care with a smile. Ash thanks her, then walks to the couch where Misty is sitting, in a corner of the hall. He lets himself drop on the red cushions with a groan.

“Are you alright?” she asks again, eyeing him. She’s wiped the makeup from her face and tossed the windbreaker on top of her dress. Something about the sight of her feels comforting, in a way he can’t put a finger on.

He nods. “Yeah. The effect of the poison sting is wearing off. Gengar’s dream eater just made me a bit woozy, is all.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor?”

“No need. I’ll be good as new before you know it.”

He can feel his lips stretch into a smile. He’s quiet for a moment then, something unspoken hanging in the space between them.

“You saved my life,” he says at last. Misty’s teeth sink into her lip as she lowers her head.

“I couldn’t let all this effort be for nothing, could I?”

Ash’s smile widens. “Thank you.”

She says nothing for a bit. “Thank you,” she echoes him then, her eyes on the floor at her feet, the words a bit strange-sounding in her mouth like she finds them hard to say. “For—pushing me out of the way of that attack, I mean.”

“That was nothing.”

Neither of them adds anything for a while. “What are you going to do now?” she asks at last.

“Sleep, I think,” he says with a tired smirk. “Once Pikachu and Staraptor are good to go we’ll head back to Viridian. I want to talk to Agatha myself.”

She nods in understanding. “Sleep if you want. I’ll wake you up if there’s something.”

He considers, then gives in. He feels like he got ran over by a bus. “Okay. Thanks. I just need a couple hours, then we can switch.”

He lays his head on the couch’s armrest, breathing out a weary breath. His eyelids slip closed within a moment, weighed by exhaustion. But Agatha’s cold, callous eyes linger in his mind, following him like a poison dart in his dreamless sleep.

***

(For a bit Misty watches him as he sleeps, deep purple marks under his eyes, hair stubbornly fallen back onto his forehead as a slight frown creases his brow. She thinks again of him shoving her to safety, his body between her and Arbok’s attack. Of her heart hammering in her temples as she turned the corner of the hallway to see Agatha with her gun drawn;  of the way his words of hope stirred something buried deep within her and almost forgotten.  _But you believe it, at least a little bit._

She thinks of Agatha’s words and shudders, her stomach squeezed to an icy lump.  _He will find out. He always does eventually._ )

***

They’re back in Viridian halfway through the next day. Misty parks her motorbike a block from the hideout, miraculously not having crashed them this time either.

“Are you heading to the police station?” she asks, securing it to the lamppost. Ash gives a nod.

“In a bit. Just the time to take a shower and eat something.”

He feels a bit worn out still despite the few hours of sleep he got, but more than the physical exertion it’s the thought of his confrontation with Agatha that’s eating up at him. The impassible look on her face as they stood in front of each other. The ease with which she gave the command for a move that would have killed him if not for Pikachu’s intervention. The thought of talking to her again has him both burning with restless impatience and feeling a cold pit in his stomach.

Inside he takes off the suit and ducks under the blast of the shower, letting it wash off sweat and exhaustion; then slips back on jeans and a t-shirt. He’s scouring the minifridge for something to eat when his pokégear lets out a buzz.

He reaches for it, Pikachu crowding on his shoulder to look as well. “Who’s that?” Misty asks, stopping on her way to her turn in the shower.

Ash frowns. “It’s from… Cassidy. One of the people who tried to draw me in that trap.”

She walks closer to see.

The message is empty except for an attached picture. Ash’s heartbeat hastens in his ears as it loads, the poor reception in the garage showing only a bundle of pixels at first.

It’s a photo of his house in Pallet Town. It’s taken from a strange, oblique angle, like whoever snapped it did so trying not to draw attention to themselves. But it’s noticing the date and time at the top right corner that chills him, plunging an icy blade in his belly.

Today’s date, taken minutes ago.


	6. VI

_(He will find out. He always does, eventually.)_

_***_

“What is it?”

Ash says nothing, his face pale as he stares at the screen of the pokégear. Misty looks over his shoulder with a frown. “…That’s your house, isn’t it?”

His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. “Yeah,” he says. She follows his glance to the corner of the photo it’s fixed on, a pause in her breath as she notices the timestamp. “They’re there. Right now.”

There’s no need for either of them to spell out the implicit threat. The weight of it hangs tangibly in the air. He presses his lips into a thin line; then sets the pokégear down on the table, the plastic clattering slightly against the wood like his hand isn’t perfectly steady. He stares at it in silence a few moments still. Then shakes his head.

“I should have—I should have known they’d try something like this to get to me. They know my name, how hard can it be to find the former Champion’s address? I—” His hand nervously runs through his hair, gripping dark locks at the nape of his neck in frustrated impotence. His head snaps towards the door. “I need to go there.”

“Wait.”

She closes her hand on his arm to hold him. He turns to frown at her. “They’re trying to draw you into another trap,” she warns him. “They _want_ you to go there.”

She can feel his muscles tense under his skin, his body pulling almost imperceptibly towards the door even as he stands still. Her touch seems to ground him a little, though, and he breathes, in and out. “My mother lives there,” he tells her, forgetting that she already knows from his file. “I can’t—even if it’s just another trap I have to go. I can’t risk them hurting her. Even if it’s me they want.”

Misty understands. Her sisters’ pictures in Giovanni’s drawer flash in her mind, dredging up with them the familiar feeling of hands clasping her throat. She _understands_ , and she lowers her eyes, biting down on the inside of her cheek until it hurts.

“I—might have a way to check if she’s alright.”

He looks at her. “Huh?”

“I bugged your house.”

There’s silence for a moment. “You’ve been to my house?” he asks then, an edge in his voice like a suddenly raised guard. She nods, her glance still on the floor at their feet.

“Before we first met. I was hoping I’d catch something something that would give me a lead on where you were hiding.” She forces herself to meet his eyes. “I did nothing to hurt your mother. She offered me tea, would you believe it?” A hint of incredulous almost-laughter escapes from her lips at the memory. “I knocked on her door and pretended to be lost and she let me in. I needed some place to start and your house was it.”

Silence again. “You could have mentioned it,” he says then, a rift in the tone of his voice still. Misty looks back away.

_How much further would you tempt fate if against all odds you met someone that seems too good to be true, someone so stubbornly determined to help you even after you pointed a gun in his face and held a knife to his throat?_ she questions crystal clear in her mind, the nail of her thumb pressing a half-moon mark into her hand. But the words stay shut in her chest, unwilling to come out. Ash adds nothing else for a few more moments, then shakes his head and breathes in and out again, slowly.

“Fine. Forget that. Let’s hear it.”

She goes to open her laptop. Pikachu jumps from his shoulder to the table as it boots up, looking expectantly at the screen. “There’s a bug in your bedroom and one in your house phone,” she says, launching the mic to speaker connection. “I’m not sure how useful they’ll be but—if there’s someone in the house we might be able to hear something.”

She tunes in on the microphone in his room first. It catches nothing but silence, and after a few seconds she switches to the other. Delia’s cheerful voice pours out of the speakers.

_« —and so I thought, why not make some of my super special blueberry pie instead? I mean, my guests would be here in about fifty minutes, and it takes forty-five in the oven, but I told myself, five minutes is more than enough to gather all the ingredients and do the mixing and kneading, isn’t it? »_

She can see the relief wash over Ash’s face, a breath escaping his lungs like he’d been holding it. On the other end of the line a woman laughs.

_« Only for the lucky select few that have your tireless energy, Delia. Oh, your blueberry pie is to die for! You need to give me the recipe one of these days. »_

_« Family recipe! But I can let you in on the secret if you insist. »_ A light chuckle. _« Do you have a pen on hand? »_

_« The honor I’ve been granted! I’m ready when you are. »_

_« Wonderful! Alright, so you’re going to need about six cups of fresh blueberries. Not frozen! It makes all the difference. Then— »_

She stops abruptly.  _« Delia? »_ comes the other woman’s voice after a few seconds.  _« Is something wrong? »_

_« Yes, I just… I thought I saw something outside. »_ A pause.  _« Just a second. Let me go check. »_

A soft thud as the phone is laid down somewhere. Next to her Ash stiffens, leaning forward a little as if he could somehow hear more than what the microphone can catch by moving closer to the speakers. There’s silence for a minute, each second stretching taut as a bowstring.

Another small noise.  _« I must have imagined it. Where were we? Oh right, fresh blueberries! Next you’re going to need half a cup of sugar, and— »_

“There’s someone,” Ash utters. Hardly more than a whisper, almost as if his voice could somehow reach Delia and whoever might be near her and alert them of their presence. “I just know it. It’s gotta be them.”

Misty presses her lips together. On the phone Delia keeps listing ingredients, only to be stopped again by a faint ringing sound.

_« Ooh, what now? Someone really doesn’t want me to give my family secrets away! I’m so sorry, Masae, I have someone at the door. We’ll have to finish this another time, is that alright? »_

_« Well, I was really looking forward to baking some pie right here and now, but I’ll allow it. »_ The other woman laughs again.  _« I won’t hold you. See you, Delia. »_

Delia trills a goodbye and hangs up. The room falls into silence, and Ash stands in place a few moments, the lines of his face drawn tight. He swallows; then breathes deeply and turns back to the door.

“I need to go to Pallet.” He grabs his jacket without waiting for a reply, Pikachu immediately following in his footsteps. He tosses it on and looks around for his keys. “I can’t sit here doing nothing. She’s okay for now but—they’re there. I have to go.”

She nods and stands, pushing the laptop closed. He’s at the door before he registers her getting ready as well.

He stops, hesitating with a hand on the doorframe as he looks at her. “Listen,” he says at last. “This… doesn’t have anything to do with you, you don’t have to come. It’s my mother, and it’s me they want.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she cuts him off, zipping up her windbreaker. “Like I could sit here while you run straight into a trap. I’m coming.”

“This isn’t—Agatha, or some strong trainer. I could sweep the floor with Butch and Cassidy with my eyes closed. And I know it’s a trap this time, they won’t have surprise on their side.”

“It’s your mother.” She locks her glance into his. “You’re not going to be thinking straight in a situation like this. They’ll have that on their side.”

He’s about to retort when his pokégear buzzes again. He freezes, then reaches into his pocket for it, the muscles in his jaw tense as he flips it open. She can’t see the expression in his eyes, shadowed by the hair falling on his forehead as he looks down; but she sees Pikachu’s grow huge and his ears flatten on his head.

“What now?”

Ash silent for a moment. Then turns the pokégear for her to see, his hand slightly unsteady as he does. It shows a blurry snap of a hallway. It only takes her a second to recognize the light green walls and the framed pictures.

“You said you’ve been there. You recognize it, don’t you? They’re—” his voice catches on a snag. He swallows. “They’re inside the house with her.”

Misty can feel her stomach twist a little. She hurries her steps towards him and the door, not wasting any time on a remark. “Come on, let’s go. Pallet isn’t far, I can get us there in a couple hours.”

She doesn’t voice the thought that popped in her head as she spoke—that a couple hours might already be too late, if what they want isn’t just to draw him into a trap but to get back at him in the worst way possible—but she knows it’s where his mind went too. His keys clatter in the lock and he mutters a curse, forcing a breath down his throat before he finally manages to turn them. He starts to turn, then stops, breathing out forcefully in a frustrated sigh.

“Agatha,” he says like he just remembered. “I was supposed to be at the police station by now.”

Misty bites her lip. “She can wait a few hours,” she says though, despite that she can hear the ticking of a clock of her own as she wonders how much time she has left before something is expected of her. “This is more urgent right now.”

He looks at her with gratitude. She nods her head towards where she parked her motorbike.

“Let’s go.”

She can feel the tension in his body as he holds onto her, wind whistling around them and blowing into her helmet as they leave behind the buildings and the paved streets of Viridian, the roar of the engine loud in her ears. The trees and shrubs of the countryside turn into a green blur at the edges of her vision.

If it were her home and her sisters she would stop at nothing. She pushes on the gas, narrowly staying on the road as it takes a turn, a cloud of dirt raised in their trail. She ignores the thought stuck in the back of her mind like a thorn: it’s not her home or her sisters and he’s not a friend to her, he can’t be, and yet she’s letting this matter to her as it does to him.

She keeps her eyes on the road, not slowing down one bit.

***

They’re in Pallet before sunset. It’s been almost two years since Ash was here last, and his chest tightens a little as his glance runs over the handful of houses of the small town he grew up in, familiar as the palm of his hand. He’s never been back for long since he started his trainer journey, something new always called for him, but in the last years he’s found that there’s a difference between being kept away from home by the pull of new adventures and being kept away from home by the target you placed on your back.

But he’s got no time for reminiscing right now. He checks his pokégear, relief and dread mixing as he finds no new messages; and squints in the direction of his house while Misty secures the motorbike. He can’t see it from there, and his hands squeeze into restless fists, impatience clawing at his mind.

Lance warned him. He would be a danger to those close to him if he chose to do this job, especially as someone with a very recognizable name and face. He was careful for the most part and managed to hide his identity well, but he couldn’t from those who knew his name already. Butch and Cassidy knew who he was long before he crossed paths with them again as a G-Man.

He shouldn’t have underestimated them. His nails dig into his palms through the fabric of his gloves.

Pikachu shifts his glance from the direction of the house to him and gives his cheek an encouraging nuzzle. He nods and turns to find Misty by his side. Some part of him is glad she’s there, he realizes, though he tried to tell her not to come.

They get moving in silence. The rumble of Ash’s heart echoes in his ears.

The house is just behind the corner. His first impulse is to run straight for the door, tear it down if necessary—but he holds himself back. He thinks of the hundred different scenarios that ran though his mind as Misty drove: his mother held hostage, maybe hurt, maybe held at gunpoint. A too-rash move could sign her death sentence for all he knows.

( _If she’s alive,_ a cruel voice whispers at the back of his mind. He smothers it with all his might.)

Nothing looks out of the ordinary at a glance. No signs of a break-in on the door or the windows; nothing indicating that someone might have entered by force. There’s a light on in the kitchen window and he stares at it for a moment, frowning.

He turns to Misty. “Let me and Pikachu go alone,” he tells her in a whisper. Her eyes turn to him like green darts. “It’s me they’re expecting. Showing up with someone else might tip them off, I don’t want to do anything that could put her in danger.”

“Fine,” she agrees after a moment. Her lips press together. “I’ll be out here. I’ll be keeping an ear on the house in case you need help.”

“There’s no need. I told you, I could sweep the floor with those two.”

“Thank me later.”

He gives in with an annoyed sigh. Pikachu jumps from his shoulder as he approaches the house, following him closely on alert. The gravel of the walkway creaks under their feet.

On the porch steps he pauses, listening. He can hear muffled chatter coming from inside, and his frown deepens as he tries to make sense of it. Guests? Could Butch and Cassidy have left without doing any damage—and why would they have? Could they have slipped in unnoticed after distracting her with the doorbell and be hiding inside waiting for him to take the bait? He hesitates a few seconds with his hand lifted mid-air, unsure. Then pushes the doorbell.

“One moment!” comes his mother’s voice from inside. Ash’s breath catches on a snag.

He hears the sound of footsteps, then the click of the latch. The door opens, pouring a crack of light on the porch in the dimming late afternoon.

Unharmed, his mother beams at him from the doorstep, clasping her hands on her chest. As she looks him up and down she notices Pikachu peeking from behind his leg, and immediately crouches to stretch her arms towards him: “Pikachu! It’s so good to see you! Come say hi!”

She stands back up with the pokémon in her arms and looks back to him. “And you! You thought you would surprise your old mom, huh, young man? Too bad your friends spoiled it.”

“My… friends?” Ash frowns. She nods, scritching the fur between Pikachu’s ears.

“Yes! They showed up a few hours ago. They didn’t want to bother, but they happened to be in Pallet and knew you were planning a visit today as well, and they hoped to meet you.”

A sinking feeling settles in the pit of his stomach. “What friends are you talking about, mom?”

“Oh, I didn’t know them, but they seem to know you really well! That blonde woman with long hair, and that young man, Buzz? No, wait—Bob? It’s just on the tip of my tongue…”

“Butch,” comes out of him almost involuntarily. She doesn’t seem to notice the somber tone of his voice, nor the way Pikachu’s ears have suddenly perked up in alarm.

“Yes! That was it! Can’t believe it slipped my mind like that…”

His insides in a knot, Ash looks past her towards the hallway and the kitchen door. He can see the light on still. “Are they still here?”

“Of course! I invited them for dinner.”

Before he can retort she’s stepped towards him and hooked one harm around him to pull him into a bone-crushing hug, squishing Pikachu between the two of them. “Come here now. You show up for the first time in almost two years and don’t even give your mom a hug?” She squeezes him even tighter, then pushes him by his shoulder to look at him. “What’s with the gloomy face? And how long has it been since you last got your hair cut? Ah, you’ll tell me everything later, let’s not keep your friends waiting any longer!”

“Mom—”

She turns to lead him towards the kitchen. He stops her by her elbow, earning a surprised cross glance in return: “What?”

“Mom, they aren’t—”

“Look who’s finally here.”

He freezes as the voice drowns his. Cassidy walks out of the kitchen and leans her back against the doorframe, crossing her arms as she locks her eyes into his. The corners of her bright red lips curl into a grin: “Quite the timing, huh? You decide to drop by for a visit on the same day we _happened_ to be in Pallet Town. What are the chances?”

Pikachu jumps out of his mother’s arms and plants himself protectively between them and the Rocket, sparks swirling around his cheeks. Butch steps out of the door after his partner. There’s bandages going down the side of his neck and poking from his sleeve to wrap around his hand, and the burning roof of the barn flashes in Ash’s mind. He unclenches his jaw, his throat bone dry when he swallows.

“What game are you two playing…?”

His mother’s eyes turn from him to Pikachu and the two Rockets and back to him again. “Is there some problem?”

Ash looks at her. “Mom, listen very carefully, they’re—”

“—certainly hoping you’re not about to spoil this cheery atmosphere,” Cassidy cuts him off. Her glance pierces through him. “It would be a real shame if things were to take an unpleasant turn, wouldn’t it?”

His mother frowns slightly, confused. Butch gives her a charming smile. “What your son was trying to say is that we need to exchange a quick word with him in private, Mrs. Ketchum, “ he says. “Business matters, we wouldn’t want to bore you with them. It won’t be more than a minute, there’s just a pressing matter we need to get out of the way.”

She seems unconvinced for a second. A timer goes off in the kitchen then, though, and Ash reluctantly lets go of her elbow, perfectly aware of the threat in Cassidy’s words. She excuses herself and hurries through the door, where Ash catches a glimpse of Mimey gesturing frantically to the oven.

He looks straight at the two Rockets the moment she’s out of earshot. “Leave her out of this.”

“Oh, we intend to,” says Cassidy. “It’s not her the boss wants, is it? She’s only… an incentive, we could say. It’s entirely up to you to avoid her becoming collateral damage.”

He swallows again. His throat feels like sandpaper. “What do you want?”

Butch raises his eyebrows. “You, of course.”

Pikachu bares his teeth, the charge around his cheeks glowing brighter. “Keep your rat at bay,” Cassidy warns. She tips her head to the kitchen door eloquently. “Or things _will_ take an unpleasant turn, I assure you.”

Ash’s nails dig into his palms. “Let them speak, Pikachu.”

“Wonderful, I see we understand each other,” she grins as the pokémon’s electricity sizzles off. “Let’s make this quick before mommy comes back. Try any sort of trickery and you’ll regret it, is that clear?”

“Yeah,” he answers, a low growl in his throat. Cassidy’s grin widens, exposing pearly teeth that look almost too straight and white.

“Great.” She nods her head to Butch. “Get the rat cage.”

He goes to pick up a brown gym bag left at the feet of the coat rack. Out of it come a pair of insulated work gloves he puts on and a small cage, the bars covered in a thick rubber layer. “Electricity-proof,” he says in a smug tone as he rights himself. “Now tell your Pikachu not to even _think_ about making a single move.”

Ash breathes out in a frustrated sigh. A quick look towards the kitchen door tells him his mother is still preoccupied with the oven. “Pikachu, do as he says.”

Pikachu’s eyes run to him with concern, but he knows to trust him. Butch grabs him by the scruff of his neck and throws him in the cage. Ash’s chest aches, but he holds Cassidy’s glance, determined not to give either of them the satisfaction to see him waver.

“Almost too easy,” she comments, arching her flawlessly drawn eyebrows. Her eyes lower towards his belt. “Now take off you pokéballs and lay them on the ground. Slowly.”

He complies. The woman gives a pleased hum. “Stand back up with your hands in sight,” she instructs. And then, to her partner: “Check that he doesn’t have anything else.”

Butch’s hands pat his waist searching for some concealed weapon. “Doesn’t look like it. Except this,” he says, pulling his pocket knife from his jacket. He tosses it aside, then at once grabs both of his arms and twists them behind his back, and Ash resists the impulse to fight, gritting his teeth. “You see,” Butch says, fastening a zip tie around his wrists, “you made a big mistake if you thought you’d be rid of us that easily. But this time there’s nothing stopping us from delivering you to the boss. So now you’re gonna follow us, and you’re gonna do it without saying a word, or your dear mommy won’t see another day.”

He just needs to get them out of the house. Far enough from her and Mimey, then he’ll deal with them. He’ll have Misty’s help too. He clenches his fists as Butch scoops up the cage and then grabs him by his elbow to steer him towards the entrance.

“What on _earth_ is going on here?!”

Ash’s blood runs cold. He turns to see his mother standing on the kitchen door, hands clad in pink oven mitts planted on her hips. His heart jumps into his throat.

“Mom, get away. I’ll be fine, I’ve got this under control, just—get away from here!”

“Not a chance, young man.” She faces the two Rockets head on, chin held high. “I don’t know what your intentions are, but I’ll have _none_ of it in this house! Let’s teach them, Mimey!”

“Mime!”

The pokémon steps at her side, its eyes glowing a bright blue while the air ripples around its spread finger. Butch lets an annoyed click roll from his tongue and reaches for one of his pokéballs: “Go, Hitmontop!”

Ash tries fruitlessly to free his hands from the zip tie while Hitmontop’s spinning kicks fly towards Mimey. A vase is caught in the fury of the attack and goes to pieces against the floor, but the air shimmers solid between the two pokémon and Hitmontop bounces back against it, Mimey and Ash’s mother temporarily safe on the other side. He tugs at the zip tie again, muttering a curse under his breath, then suddenly remembers the pocket knife and scans the floor for it. He spots it a few feet from where he’s standing.

Cassidy pulls out one of her pokéballs as well, impatient. “Sableye, lend Hitmontop a hand! Let’s get this done with quickly.”

He crouches while they’re both distracted, trying to reach the knife with his hands stuck behind his back. He almost has it, almost—but his fingers only grasp at the air. He curses again, straining further. He feels the handle of the knife under his fingertips only to drop it a second time.

“ _Goddamn it—_ ”

The claws of Cassidy’s Sableye scratch furiously at the psychic wall. It holds for a few moments, then shatters into a glimpse of fading mirror shards.

Amid the chaos and the thunder of his own heart Ash didn’t hear the front door open. But he feels the hand brush against his, and the coldness of the blade as it slips between the plastic tie and his wrists. “I told you you would thank me later,” says Misty’s voice close to his ear.

The zip tie gives. Ash dives to grab his pokéballs from where he dropped them and springs back to his feet, one already in his palm:

“Ivysaur—”

It all happens in the blink of an eye.

Sableye eludes Mimey and leaps straight towards his mother’s face. She half-steps back with a startled yelp and loses her balance under the pokémon’s weight.

Her head bounces hard against the corner of the doorframe as she falls. A loud  _thud_ ; louder than it should be. She crumples to the floor and there she remains. Ash blinks as he watches her hands convulse once and then fall still, watches the red stain begin to spread under the scattered locks of her brown hair.

_Mom_ , he calls her. He thinks he does, at least. But his lips move without a sound.

“Mime? Mime-mime…?”

Mimey turns to its trainer with a look of horror. A moment; then its head snaps back towards Butch and Cassidy, its eyes set afire. The air ripples again around its fingers and glows blindingly blue. Just in time Ash manages to shake himself out of his daze enough to dive for cover, pushing Misty down with himself and hoping the cage will shield Pikachu.

When he lifts his head Butch, Cassidy and their pokémon are on the ground and the psychic blast has scorched a half-circle mark into the wooden floor all around them. Mimey stands at the center of it, breathing heavily; then suddenly the light goes out from its eyes and it drops exhausted first to its knees and then to its face.

Ash stands on shaky legs. Stumbling, he walks to where his mother is lying, stepping over Butch’s unconscious body and dropping to his knees next to her. His hand closes around her shoulder, holding desperately onto its warmth, but he stops without daring to try and shake her awake. His eyes zero on the blood under her head.

“Mom,” he tries again to call her. “Mom—please say something. Please—”

The taste of bile climbs the back of his throat. Lance warned him. He warned him. He would put his loved ones in danger. He wasn’t careful enough and now— now she’s—

Misty kneels on the other side of her and presses two fingers to her throat. “She’s alive,” she says after a couple seconds. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

She stands without waiting for a reaction. A few moments later he hears her on the phone, her voice strangely far away though she’s only at the end of the hallway. His hand is still clasping his mother’s shoulder. He has to force himself to let go and turn to check that Pikachu is okay and take care of the two Rockets before they start to wake up.

When he’s done tying their wrists and their ankles together she still hasn’t moved. One of her pink oven mitts is abandoned on the floor next to her. It’s got a heart pattern stitched around the seam in a brighter shade of pink. Somehow the sight of it feels like a kick in the stomach, out of everything.

_Please,_ is the only coherent thought he can form. Over and over, his eyes stuck on the stupid oven mitt.  _Please. Please. Please._

***

The waiting room of the only hospital near Pallet Town is empty. It’s got the pungent smell of disinfectant, and Misty sits uneasy on the edge of one of the orange plastic chairs, thinking something irrelevant about how it’s a stupidly cheerful choice of a color for a place like that to fill the silence.

Next to her Ash stares at the floor, Pikachu curled in a ball of anguish at his feet. He hasn’t said a word since the woman at the check-in desk pointed at the chairs and told them to wait there, which was about twenty minutes ago. She keeps wanting to offer a word of comfort and finding herself incapable of lying: she doesn’t know that his mother will be okay. She’s not a fool, she knows head traumas are nothing to joke about. He’s not a fool either.

The ambulance got there first. She hid behind the kitchen door while he spoke to the paramedics, and heard his voice crack under the surface as he said he couldn’t go with them because he needed to wait for the police. Only after giving his statement to the officer who took Butch and Cassidy into custody and after reassuring a distraught Mr. Mime he let her drive him to the hospital. All the while he somehow managed to hold himself together, and she hated to realize how clearly she could see through the facade.

She eyes the coffee vending machine in a corner. She watches it for a few moments, biting her lip; then stands and finds a couple coins in her pocket. She buys two coffees in two plastic cups and goes back holding them both.

Ash stares at the one she places under his nose, then looks away. “No thanks.”

“You haven’t eaten anything all day.”

“I’m going to be sick.”

She lets a moment pass. “Okay,” she sighs then, and sits back in her place, leaving the cup on the empty seat next to her. The other she brings to her lips after holding it a bit in her hands to absorb its warmth. She hasn’t eaten anything all day either, and her stomach reminds her by squeezing in a painful cramp.

Ash lowers his face into his hands. He presses his fists against his eyes, his shoulders rising in a sudden twitch, and draws a breath that’s not exactly a sob but something close. Misty’s eyes turn to him, a lump swelling in her throat.

She hesitates. Then stretches a hand towards him and places it on his back, at the center of his spine. She feels him jump slightly at her touch; feels him tremble almost imperceptibly under her palm. She feels her own heart, too, racing just a little as she reaches past a wall she didn’t want to let herself cross.

_I can’t be your friend,_ she told him. And yet she can feel the rattle of his pain and it twists her up inside too.

He sobs-breathes again, and again, and then slowly his breath falls back into a rhythm as the knot in his chest eases. Misty keeps the hand on his back. He gives himself a few seconds still, then lowers his hands, his eyes a little wet as he looks back to the floor.

“Chuu,” Pikachu tries to comfort him, jumping into his lap to lick his face. Ash leans his forehead into the pokémon’s.

“I’m okay, buddy, don’t worry about me.”

Misty presses her lips together. “It’s your mother,” she says after a moment, taking her hand back. “You don’t have to be okay. I mean—you can cry if you want.”

She immediately wants to bite her tongue after saying it, because she’d have no idea how to comfort him if he were to. But he shakes his head and turns to her with a grateful glance. “I feel better. Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

They’re both silent for a while. She finishes her coffee; Ash’s eyes wander back towards the floor.

“I’ve never… really told her what I do exactly,” he says eventually, still not looking up. His fingers hold onto Pikachu’s fur like a safety blanket. “To my mom, I mean. She knows the gist, of course, that I work for the government to catch the bad guys. But I’ve never really told her any details. I knew—Lance told me that the people around me would be in danger because of what we did. I thought maybe… if I kept her in the dark as much as I could, if I didn’t let her in—maybe none of this would reach her, and she would be safe.”

He pauses. Misty looks at him, not sure what to say. She wishes it were that easy. The weight of guilt she hears in his voice when he goes on though tells her that deep down he knew, too. “But maybe if instead I’d warned her—if I’d told her that Butch and Cassidy were trying to get to me—”

He can’t finish. “You didn’t do this to her,” she says after a moment. He presses his lips into a thin line and says nothing.

She crumples the plastic cup in her hands a bit. “I’m sorry, by the way,” she tells him, looking away. “For not telling you that I went to your house, I mean. I thought—I don’t know. That maybe knowing I did would change your mind about me.”

He glances at her. “You thought I’d think bugging my phone was worse than trying to kill me?”

“Not for the bug. For using your mother to get to you.” The plastic crinkles harder in her grasp. “I think I figured out that you could forgive any harm done to you. It’s just how you’re wired, isn’t it? Even if it’s really stupid. But you wouldn’t be as quick to forgive harm done to your loved ones. I know from the way you talk about Lance.”

There’s silence for a moment. “You didn’t harm her,” he says then. “So there’s nothing I need to forgive.”

Before she can reply the door at one end of the waiting room opens. A man with gray hair barges in, breathing heavily, and after a couple moments Misty recognizes him: it’s Professor Samuel Oak. She read about him in Ash’s file and heard him talk on the phone with Delia. His eyes scan the room to zero on Ash, who stiffens and sits up straighter.

“Ash?! I came here as soon as I heard from a neighbor—what in Arceus’ name happened?”

She can see Ash swallow. He takes a breath and stands to meet the professor. “…Two Team Rocket agents got into mom’s house,” he says, struggling to meet the older man’s eyes. “There was a fight and—she got hurt. She hit her head.”

“A fight?” Professor Oak stares at him, his face taut and pale. “How—how is she?”

“We don’t know yet.”

Silence. Misty thinks of the phonecall she listened to, and the closeness she heard in their voices. The professor’s eyes trail towards the floor a moment as he processes the information, then turn back to Ash, hardening almost imperceptibly.

“Since when are you back?” he asks. Ash’s cheek works as he bites down on it.

“Since today.”

Professor Oak takes in that information with a hum. “And it’s only a coincidence, I suppose,” he says then, the frown of his gray brows harsh “that after two years of almost radio silence you finally decide to show up, and on that day, that same day—these two Team Rocket agents show up too and hurt her?”

Ash takes the accusation without a remark. The older man looks at him, his eyes piercing darts.

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve listened to her saying that she was worried about you, Ash? That you hardly ever deigned her of a phonecall, never wanted to talk about what you do, and now this.” He shakes his head. “What have you dragged her into, Ash?”

“It wasn’t Ash’s fault.”

Both men’s heads turn towards her. “And you are?” Professor Oak’s asks after a pause.

“I’m—” She hesitates only briefly. “A coworker of his. I know Ash never intentionally did anything that could put her in danger. Or anyone else he cares for, including you.”

“Just leave it, Misty,” says Ash in a whisper. Professor Oak looks at her a long moment. Then breathes out some of his anger in a sigh.

“Well, intentionally or not, here we are,” he says grimly. He goes to sit on one of the chairs, a few seats from them. Ash stands in place for a moment still, his hands curling into shaky fists, then sits back down as well. His eyes remain glued to the floor, barely lifting when Pikachu jumps back into his lap.

“Are you Delia Ketchum’s family?”

They turn. A doctor looks in from the door, a tired expression on her face. Ash draws a tense breath. Then nods.

On instinct Misty finds his hand and gives it a brief squeeze as he stands.

***

The hospital room is quiet aside from the steady beeping of the heart monitor. Ash stands on the door and thinks that he can’t do it—his leg won’t hold him, he’ll stumble and fall face first. Only after an interminable moment he manages to force himself to step inside.

The doctor’s words echo through his head.  _We’re fairly confident that she will pull through alive, but… it’s still early to determine if there’s brain damage, and how severe. Right now we’re closely monitoring her intracranial pressure to make sure it stays in a safe range._

_What does that mean?_ , he wanted to know. The times he’d ended up in the E.R. himself felt so inconsequential. He walked out with a prescription of painkillers or a recommendation to avoid sleep for the twenty-four hours after a mild concussion and with a gentle slap on the wrist from Lance or Pikachu, not with incomprehensible medical talk. He always knew it could be worse, but it never mattered enough to really bother him. Not when it was him.

His mother’s hand lies on the white sheet, connected to an oximeter and an IV line.

_Swelling of the brain. It can be a consequence of traumatic head injuries and lead to more extensive damage if not immediately treated. Now… the consequences of brain injury can vary widely. From mild memory loss, to permanent cognitive disabilities, to irreversible coma or even death. As I said we’re fairly confident that your mother will live, but… unfortunately, she isn’t responding to any stimuli yet. All we can do at the moment is wait._

He stops. His stomach is in a knot, so tightly twisted he wants to double over. He can’t take his eyes off her hand to look at her face.

He turns to the nurse who escorted him to the room. “Can I talk to her?” he asks. “I mean—can she… hear me?”

The woman gives a sympathetic shrug. “You can try.”

Ash turns back to the bed. He wants to say a million things and he wants to say none. He swallows, feeling the bitter taste of bile at the back of his throat.

“I’m sorry, mom,” is all he ends up whispering. He looks towards her face for a second; he can’t bear more. “I never… I never wanted something like this to happen.”

He can’t be there any longer. He feels as though the walls are about to close in on him, cutting off his air supply, and he turns and rushes back to the door. “Is there a bathroom?” he asks the nurse, his breath short like he just ran.

She points at a door at the end of the hallway. He thanks her and hurries in that direction, and dry heaves in the sink holding onto the ceramic edge. He’s got nothing to throw up, and after a couple moments he straightens himself, and opens the faucet to spray cold water over his face. His reflection in the mirror looks back at him with sunken eyes.

He forces a few deep breaths down his throat, then takes himself back to the waiting room. Pikachu runs to him as soon as he spots him, climbing to his shoulder to comfort him with a nuzzle. He ruffles his fur, then swallows and turns towards Professor Oak.

“I—have to go back to Viridian,” he says, feeling the older man’s glance harden. “I have some work matters I need to take care of. Can you—be with her?”

“They can’t wait? Your work matters?” the professor asks. He sinks his teeth into his lip.

“They can’t.”

The professor shakes his head with a disappointed sigh. “Go, then. I’ll be with her. Of course.”

He catches the accusatory tone in his voice, but lets it go with no retort. Misty stands to follow him to the door.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get some rest first?” she asks as it slides closed behind them. It’s late, and he’s only gotten a couple hours of sleep yesterday night, after having his life nearly squeezed out of him by Agatha’s Gengar. He shakes his head though.

“I’ve lost enough time already. I need to get to the police station and talk to Agatha.” He pauses. “You can rest though if you’re too tired to drive. I can take the bullet train or something.”

She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and heads through the parking lot. “I’ll rest once we’re in Viridian. Let’s go.”

The dusty light of very early morning filters through the window shutters as he walks into the lobby of the Viridian police station.

He’s thoroughly exhausted, mentally and physically. The weight of everything that happened since the Silph gala presses down on him, only accentuated by the lack of sleep: his mother lying motionless in a hospital bed, the confirmation of Agatha’s betrayal, Professor Oak’s harsh words. But he’s already lost almost a whole day and he doesn’t have all the time in the world.  _Misty_ doesn’t have all the time in the world. So he needs to go on.

“I’m here to see Officer Jenny. Is she here?” he asks the attendant on duty at the front desk. The young man nods, barely lifting his head—he knows him and Pikachu well enough to recognize them at a glance—and gestures with the paper knife in his hand towards the chief’s office.

He catches her as she’s stepping out of the door, a stack of reports in her arms. “Ash,” she greets him, seemingly surprised to see him there. He tips his head in a nod.

“Officer,” he responds. “Sorry for the wait. I had—something urgent I needed to take care of. A family matter.”

“I wasn’t expecting to see you today, to be honest,” she says. “I got word of what happened at your house from my colleague a couple hours ago. I am sorry, Ash.”

He feels himself waver slightly, a thin crack spreading through is held-together facade at her offered compassion. But he holds onto his brave face. “Thanks.”

“How is your mother doing?”

Ash swallows. “She’s… in the hospital right now,” is all he can tell her. Officer Jenny studies him briefly, her forehead pinching into a frown.

“And how are _you_ doing?” she asks. “You look like you’ve seen better days.”

“I’ve been better,” he admits. “But I’m fine. Really.”

She gives a “hm” without prodding further and places the reports in a file cabinet. “You’re here to talk to Agatha, I suppose?”

He nods again. “I want to question her myself.”

She pushes the cabinet drawer closed and turns to lead him towards the interrogation room. “I must admit it was quite a shock to have you turn in a member of the Elite Four,” she tells him, her steps echoing along the empty hallway. “But the recording you provided and the footage of the Silph Co. headquarters’ security cameras sadly leave little room for doubt.”

“Has she said anything?” Ash asks. Officer Jenny shakes her head with a frustrated sigh.

“Not to us.”

“Maybe she will talk to me,” he says. She arches her eyebrows slightly and doesn’t retort. She unhooks a ring of keys from her belt and flips through them, stopping in front of the door.

“The charges she’s currently facing are quite serious. Team Rocket association and facilitation of a felony, attempted murder of a government official and possibly conspiracy to murder of another.”

She turns the key in the lock, opening the door on the empty room. “What’s gonna happen now with the Viridian gym?” Ash asks as he steps inside.

“It’s currently under seizure. It will undergo searching for further proof of her involvement with the organization shortly. Then eventually the Pokémon League will have to appoint a substitute, I suppose. Another one,” she corrects herself, remembering that Agatha was herself filling a vacant spot. “Same for her position in the Elite Four.”

Ash purses his lips, wondering about the likelihood of the searches turning up something that could bring them closer to Giovanni. He steps inside and drags the chair to sit, Pikachu hopping onto the table to perch by his side. “I’ll have her brought here in a moment,” says Officer Jenny, before closing the door behind herself.

Left alone in the silent room with his partner Ash feels his pulse hasten a little in his temples. He remembers how impassibly Agatha stood in front of him, how easily she gave her Gengar the command to kill. He knows he won’t be in any danger now; but the thought of confronting her again still has him sitting on the edge of his seat. His nails dig impatiently into his palms as he waits.

The door at the opposite end of the room opens after a handful of minutes. Agatha walks in escorted by two agents, and her dark eyes find him straight away, sending a chill down his spine. Pikachu jumps to his feet, protectively readying himself to defend his trainer; and Ash calms him with a wordless pat.  _She can’t hurt me._ But he finds his throat dry when he swallows anyway.

She’s brought to sit in front of him and handcuffed to the table. “You can leave now,” Ash tells the two agents, thanking them with a nod of his head.

Once the door clicks closed there’s silence again. Agatha’s expression gives away nothing as they look at each other.

He breathes in and tries to push the events of the past few hours at the back of his mind, as impossible as it feels. He needs every available ounce of focus if he wants a chance to get at something.

“Lance thought very highly of you,” he says at last. “I could tell from the way he talked about you. He respected you as a trainer and as a person. And as a friend.”

“I know he did,” Agatha says laconically. Ash looks her in the eyes.

“I respected you as well,” he tells her. “I remember the first time we met, what was it, six years ago? Seven? You beat me easily. It was a great battle, and I remember being so impressed. I thought—woah, I want to be that strong one day. You gave me some great advice, too.”

She stares straight at him, her dark irises piercing darts. “Do you seriously still think that trying to pull at my heartstrings will work, after I already tried to kill you once?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs. “Maybe not. I’m just trying to understand you. You were an esteemed trainer, a member of the Elite Four. A friend to Lance, and to many other people. Why would you throw all that away? I might not know you as well as he did but—I do know you, at least a little. I don’t think you’re a completely heartless person. So why?”

His hands tighten into fists as he speaks despite his best efforts to remain level-headed. Agatha lets out a scoffing breath, looking at him still.

“There are many things that you don’t know.”

“Tell me, then,” he presses. “You’re going to jail, probably for life. What else do you have to lose? What could still be worth protecting?”

Her eyebrows arch slightly. Then she tips her head, and incredibly lets out a thin hint of laughter. “Lance trained you well,” she says. “It did pain me to betray him. Our friendship was sincere, once. Had he never joined the G-Men it would probably still be. But once I learned he had I knew there was only one way things could end. I delayed it as much as I could, maybe more than I should have. I shouldn’t have allowed him to take in a trainee to carry on his legacy. But it needed to happen, eventually.”

Her words plunge a blade into Ash’s belly and twist, again and again. “So it really was you,” he comments, not really a question.

“I’ve already told you it was,” she replies. For a moment he catches a glimpse of something in her eyes, maybe remorse. Maybe it’s just him clinging to a faint hope. “I made his name to Giovanni. I did not kill him.”

“But you knew what would happen, didn’t you?”

“Of course.”

He scoffs. “So you might as well have cut his brakes yourself.”

“Perhaps.” The lines of her face tighten slightly. Ash forces himself to take a breath.

“Why?”

“I’ve already told you this too. He was starting to be too big an inconvenience, meddling with too many things. It had to be taken care of.”

Ash looks at her. “But  _why?_ ” he insists. “If you knew that Giovanni would have him killed, and you really considered him a genuine friend once—why did it have to go that way? Why couldn’t you try to stop him in some other way, why—not warn him of what was going to happen if he kept going?”

Her eyebrows shoot up slightly again. “Do you think he would ever have stopped?” she asks. Her lips form an almost imperceptible smirk after a second of pause. “Would you?”

The question stumps him for a moment. Would he? Not if it was his life that depended on it. But the realization that he’s still steadfastly pushing forward even after it nearly cost his mother her own hits him, turning his stomach. Agatha shakes her head, almost with pity.

“Nice trick he’s pulled on you, huh, your beloved mentor? For your sake, he should have left you in the dark and never let you into his world. He’s damned you.”

“He didn’t drag me anywhere. I insisted,” he retorts, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “And Giovanni hasn’t managed to get rid of me yet. I can finish what Lance started.”

She says nothing, just keeps watching him with that same pitiful air. Ash tries again to suppress the anger rising up inside him.

“The Officer Jenny from Blackthorn seemed like she wanted to bring the truth to light at first,” he says. “I mean about Lance’s accident. Then she suddenly retracted everything and closed the case, like someone bought her silence. Were you involved with that too?”

“I wasn’t.” Her face is unreadable again. “But Giovanni is a very persuasive man. And you seem to have good intuition. Perhaps you should trust it.”

He takes the half-confirmation with a grimace. For a long moment they look at each other across the table again, neither saying anything.

“Why?” Ash asks again eventually. “Forget about Lance. Why do you do all of this? Running the gym for Giovanni, meddling with the Pokémon League for him, lying to everyone for all these years—what could possibly be worth it? What does he have over you?”

Agatha’s face darkens. He let on that he knows more about her activities than she might have realized. “Who told you about all of this?” she deflects. “Your friend, the little traitor?”

“Coming from you,” he scoffs, his eyebrows raising in disbelief. They lock in a frown then, and he leans forward, hands balled into fists again. “Leave her out of this and answer my question.”

“Oh, I struck a nerve, it seems,” she comments. “How did you get her to defect and turn to your side? Did you promise her what you just said to me? That you would finish what your mentor started and take down Team Rocket, and then you’d both be free to live happily ever after? Poor girl. Damned just like you are.”

Ash’s palms burn as his nails dig into them. “Answer my question,” he insists, pouring every ounce of his willpower into not rising to her bait.

Agatha looks at him. Pity and scorn mix in her eyes. “As I’ve told you,” she says, “there are many things that you don’t know.”

***

After Ash leaves for the police station Misty finally steps under the shower, sighing in relief a bit as the hot water soothes her tired muscles. She heats herself a bowl of instant ramen noodles she found in the cabinet and scarfs it down with urgency, then lies down on the bed, with the intention of getting at least a couple hours of sleep before he comes back. But worry keeps her awake and alert, her eyes drawn towards the door.

She’s beginning to finally drift into sleep when the buzz of her pokégear suddenly brings her back to reality. Her eyes snap open, her heart jumping straight into her throat.

A cold sweat descends over her as she locates her windbreaker tossed on the back of a chair and the bulging pocket where she left the device. She hasn’t given her number to Ash. There’s exactly one person who regularly contacts her through it.

She swallows. Then stands and goes to pick up the pokégear, the rush of her heart a crescendo in her temples. Her stomach crumples to a fist as she reads the words on the outer display.

_1 new message from Matori_

She forces a shaky inhale and flips it open, shutting her eyes for a second in anticipation.

_Matori (6:15): The boss wants to see you._

The floor crumbles under her feet. She stares at the screen, her throat seized by the familiar feeling of hands squeezing her breath out of her; and for a long moment she can’t move or form a thought coherent enough. The check next to the message catches her eye and slaps her out of her panicked stupor. Matori can tell she’s read it.

_Why?,_ she almost types, her fingers unsteady on the keyboard. Then deletes it. She’s not supposed to question orders. She tries again, attempting to think as she normally would.

_Misty (6:21): same place as always?_

She waits with bated breath. The pokégear buzzes again in her hand.

_Matori (6:22): No. The gym has been compromised. I’ll send you an address._

_Matori (6:22): Half an hour from now. It’s imperative that you do not keep him waiting._

Misty swallows again. Her throat is bone dry. She types an  _okay_ , then closes the device and almost tosses it away from herself, fighting the impulse to hurl. Her mind runs through every possible scenario in the space of a few seconds: not go. Go and try to act like everything is normal. Run away. Confess everything to Giovanni and beg for his forgiveness.

She forces her lungs to cooperate and gingerly reopens the pokégear. She looks at the address Matori sent.

_Half an hour from now._

Moving almost on autopilot, she  strips off her clothes and changes into her black uniform, the image of her sisters’ pictures in the drawer  clear at the back of her mind. For a moment still she lingers on her feet. She knew this was going to happen eventually. She thought she might still have some time.

She glances at the clock on the wall. 6:27. She’s wasted five minutes already. She thinks of what she told Ash:  _if it comes down to you or me, or you or my sisters, I can’t choose you._

She takes a breath that doesn’t seem to actually contain any air and leaves the hideout, feeling like she’s heading to face her doom.

***

“What kind of things?” Ash presses. He studies Agatha’s once again impassible face, trying to read something out of it. She says nothing, and lets nothing show, and he breathes out in a frustrated sigh, shaking his head.

“Agatha,” he says after a moment. “Listen. There’s no changing what you did. There’s no getting out of paying the consequences either. With the proof we have of your involvement with Team Rocket and your attempt to kill me I doubt anything is going to clear your name, or reduce your sentence in any significant way. But you can still ease your conscience. It’s not too late for that.”

“Ease my conscience.” She repeats it like she finds it a laughable suggestion. “What makes you think I want to?”

He shrugs. “You’re going to have to live with yourself. And have a lot of time to reflect on everything you did in a prison cell.”

Her lips press together slightly, but again she doesn’t remark. Feeling a small chance that he might be getting at something Ash keeps pushing: “Give me something. Anything that can point me towards Giovanni. It won’t bring Lance back, it won’t make up for every wrong you did over these years. But maybe it’ll help you sleep at night to know that at last you chose to do the right thing.”

She lets a hint of scoffing laughter tumble out of her throat. “You truly are something special. I would have killed you in cold blood if your traitor friend hadn’t stepped in, and here you are trying to appeal to my humanity. Is this the same thing you did to the poor girl? No wonder she’s smitten.” Her glance hardens, piercing through him. “It won’t work with me.”

“Think about it.” Ash gives another small shrug, again forcing himself not to react to her pointed comment. “Is your loyalty to Giovanni really worth living the rest of your life alone with your thoughts, with the knowledge that the blood of every person and pokémon Team Rocket will hurt will be on your hands too because you passed your chance to help put an end to it?”

Her eyes narrow. “You’re making the assumption that I care.”

“But I think deep down you do.” He looks straight back at her. “Or you wouldn’t have said it pained you to get rid of Lance.”

She watches him with contempt for a moment, then turns away, letting out a sharp sigh. “You know nothing about my loyalty to Giovanni.”

“Tell me, then.”

Silence. Ash breathes in and out again slowly, once again fighting a surge of anger stirring up within him. “I’ll keep reminding you,” he swears to her. “About Lance. And about everything Giovanni might do from now on. You’ll have time to reflect on it. But I’m not gonna give up.”

“Quite the threat,” she comments unimpressed. Ash’s glance doesn’t let her go.

There has to be some part of her that he can reach. Something that will make all of this worth it. Deep down he believes it despite everything.

“Think about it,” he insists. “It’s all I’m asking you to do.”

Agatha’s eyes turn back to him, narrowing again as she studies him. “It’s interesting,” she comments after a moment. “You don’t care that I nearly killed you, do you? All this talk about holding me responsible for Lance, for hypothetical people and pokémon Giovanni might or might not hurt in the future… and yet you don’t even bring up the fact that you might very well have died a fairly painful death by my hand.”

The words Misty said to him in the waiting room bubble up at the back of his mind.  _I think I figured out that you could forgive any harm done to you. It’s just how you’re wired, isn’t it? Even if it’s really stupid._ He swallows, somewhat unnerved.

“So what?” he asks. Her turn to give a shrug.

“Lance wasn’t unlike you, especially when he was younger. Always wanting to help others, even at the expense of himself.” Her glance once again locks into his. “And look where that ended him up.”

***

She makes it to the address Matori gave her just in time. She takes off her helmet and secures her motorbike, her hands unsteady enough it takes her two tries to lock the chain. She squeezes them into fists to stop them from shaking and hurries up the stairs of the apartment complex. The pounding of her heart hammers in her ears, almost drowning out the sound of her steps.

Matori expects her as usual. “Right on time,” she comments, arching yer eyebrows slightly in surprise. “That might be a first.”

Misty looks around. The atrium is bare, hastily furnished with a desk for the secretary to sit at. “Where are we?” she asks as she takes off her windbreaker, trying to keep her tone as unsuspecting as she can. There’s no coat hanger to drop it onto, and Matori gestures for her to leave it on an empty chair, barely  taking her  attention from her reports.

“Vacant building. One of Giovanni’s properties.”

“What happened to the gym?”

The secretary’s eyes lift to fix into hers for a second, and Misty feels her stomach twist, suddenly dead certain that she either already knows everything or can read it on her face like an open book. “Something happened with Agatha,” the woman says though, lowering her glance back to the reports. “None of your business. Is something wrong? Your face looks a bit green.”

She feels like she could double over and throw up on her desk. “I just have a bad headache,” she lies. She bites the inside of her cheek, hard enough to hurt. “Did he tell you why he wants to see me?”

“Find out,” Matori shrugs. She points towards the door at her left with the pen she’s holding. Misty looks at it and swallows, her throat drier than concrete.

She’s got no choice. She walks up to it with wobbly knees and knocks; then turns the knob to step inside. She straightens her back and holds up her chin as always, her nails pressing into her palms so hard she feels the sting even through the uniform’s gloves.

Giovanni looks from the papers he’s holding to her as she enters the room. He says nothing, just watches her with tight-lipped expectancy, his expression unreadable. Misty forces herself to take a breath.

“You—” She clears her throat. “You requested to see me, sir?”

“I did, indeed,” he says, his tone sharp and somewhat devoid of its usual pleasantry. She doesn’t dare to try and guess the reason. He drops one last glance towards his papers, then sets them aside and looks back to her. “Come closer,” he commands.

Misty complies. Persian’s eyes track her across the room like piercing little darts before it closes them in a yawn and  stretches to curl at its master’s feet. She stops a few steps from the desk, her heart so loud in her ears she almost fears either of them might hear it. Giovanni looks her up and down, harsh creases framing the corners of his mouth.

“So,” he questions “how is the task I assigned you proceeding?”

She swallows again. “I—have made some progress, sir,” she answers. “I believe I’m close to locating Ash Ketchum.”

“Really,” he comments, his eyebrows shooting up slightly. “I don’t suppose you have anything to show for it?”

She parts her lips to speak and comes up with nothing. Panicking, she frantically combs through her mind for something that could satisfy him, only finding information that would expose her or Ash. “…I know for a fact that he’s located here in Viridian,” is all she manages to say at last. “It’s only a matter of time until I find him. Days, probably. Maybe less.”

The man looks at her, his unimpressed gaze unflinching. He purses his lips in a “hm”, then pulls open the drawer of his desk. His hand emerges holding something. Light catches on the stones of his rings as he places it in front of her.

Misty’s stomach squeezes into a painful knot as recognition sinks in. It’s the microphone Ash placed in his office at the gym.

“Can you tell me what this is?” Giovanni asks. She gulps down a lump of air.

“A microphone, sir?”

He looks at her still. “I had someone thoroughly clean up my office at the Viridian gym as soon as I got word that an operation involving Agatha had gone awry, before the police had a chance to get to it,” he says. “I couldn’t run the risk of them finding something that would lead them to me, of course. I’ll admit I was quite surprised when that turned up. My first thought went to Ash Ketchum: to my knowledge, nobody else is currently as close as he is on the organization’s trail. But how did he come to know about the gym, I wondered?”

“I—I don’t know, sir.”

It comes out twisted up and shaky, and she curses herself, her nails cutting into her palms. The man’s eyes narrow.

( _He will find out,_ Agatha said.)

“Are you certain?”

( _He always does, eventually. _)__

____

“Positive.”

____

What little semblance of  amiability Giovanni’s face held  falls suddenly, a twitch pulling at the corner of his eye. “You’re insulting my intelligence,” he says. “And you’re insulting your own, too.”

____

He reaches into the drawer again and tosses a bunch of pictures in front of her. Misty’s blood runs cold: she recognizes herself in the blue cocktail dress, caught among the guests at the Silph Co. gala. Standing next to Ash. She remembers the reporters and the flashes and feels the floor go missing under her feet.

____

“The _second_ thing I did immediately after I was informed of the fiasco,” Giovanni says “was to gather as much material as I could from the event to figure out exactly what failed. Imagine my surprise and my disappointment when this is what I saw.”

____

“I—I can explain,” she scrambles. “It was—part of a plan to get close to him. I was only trying to—”

____

“Enough.” He slams a hand on his desk, making her flinch at the impact. “I give you one more chance and _this_ is how you repay me? With betrayal?!”

____

Any lingering trace of his pleasant facade dropped now, Misty truly sees him in his essence, and terror seizes her and digs its claws into her flesh. “Please,” she tries, the pictures of her sisters and the Cerulean gym flashing in front of her eyes. “Let me try again. I will do it. I—”

____

“It’s too late.”

____

Misty’s throat squeezes shut. Giovanni watches her with utmost contempt. “Go home,” he orders. “And turn on the TV. Put on the news.” He glances at his wrist watch. “Twenty-five minutes from now, according to my calculations.”

____

“What…?” she manages to ask. Giovanni’s eyes pierce through her.

____

“Do as I said. And make sure to have your pokégear on hand.”

____

Her heart grows louder as some sort of understanding sets in, drowning out everything. She stands in place a few seconds, every bit of her rejecting the growing realization in her gut. Then turns and rushes out of the office. She doesn’t even register Matori’s displeased look as she bursts out of the door.

____

“You forgot your—”

____

She doesn’t stop. Her steps echo on the stairs, almost stumbling as the wild run of her pulse follows her.  _Please_ , is all she can think, her sisters’ pictures burned into her mind. _Please, please let them be okay._

____

____

____

Her motorbike almost topples over as she parks it carelessly. Not bothering to lock it, she hurries up the fire escape towards her apartment, for once not caring about whoever might hear her. The keys slip from her fingers as she tries to open the door and she curses loudly as she bows to grab them and jam them in the lock again.

____

She leaves the door to slam shut behind herself and rushes to the small, hardly ever used TV in a corner. Her heart slams against her ribs as she turns it on.

____

Twenty-five minutes, he said. She glances at the clock while the screen lights up: it took her twenty-eight to get there. The  _BREAKING NEWS_ logo flashing in a corner catches her eye, violently snagging her  focus back to the TV.

____

_« …the explosion that took place at the Cerulean City gym less than an hour ago, tearing down the whole_ _left_ _side of the building. The cause is still unknown, as the Cerulean police and the fire department are still on the scene; it can’t be ruled out at the moment that this could be a deliberate attack. »_

____

Every bit of her goes numb. Behind the agitated reporter the screen shows the gym in ruins, a pillar of black smoke still billowing towards the gray sky. Everything she and her sisters tried desperately to save, gone in a moment at the snap of Giovanni’s fingers. Because of her failure. Her eyes frantically scan the crowd of onlookers gathered around the disaster, trying, praying to find her sisters’ faces.

____

_« There’s no news, it seems, of the three gym leaders, Daisy, Lily and Violet Waterflower. While some of their pokémon have been pulled from the rubble no trace of the three women appears to have been found. The police is currently looking into… »_

____

A static noise fills Misty’s ears,  smothering the reporter’s words. She stares at the images running on the screen, her knuckles white around the remote. The cramp in her chest tells her she hasn’t been breathing for who knows how long.

____

A buzzing noise. It takes her a second to realize that it’s coming from her pokégear.

____

She reaches in her pocket for it with shaky hands, her eyes fixed on the TV screen still. It’s a call.

____

She brings it to her ear with cold sweat chilling her.

____

“Are you watching?” Giovanni’s voice asks. Misty swallows.

____

“What have you done with them?” she almost growls. “What have you done with my sisters?!”

____

“Nothing yet,” he says, his tone blood-curlingly collected. “It’s entirely up to you to determine whether that’s going to change.”

____

She shakes her head. On the screen the camera zooms on the blackened walls. “What do you mean?”

____

“I will send you some coordinates,” he tells her. Calm still, almost surgical, while in front of her eyes the TV vomits images of the gym’s Dewgong banner twisted up and mangled. “You have twenty-four hours to bring Ash Ketchum there. Fail me one more time and you’ll never see your sisters again.”

____

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter hurt to write. Can't wait for the next one to be worse. :D  
> Don't worry, despite this last turn the story isn't close to over! (Unless you'd prefer it to end soon, in which case well, do worry, I guess.)


	7. VII

The coins he’s scraped from his pocket clatter in the vending machine. A faint wave of nausea hits him as soon as the scent of coffee reaches his nostrils, but he forces himself to pick up the cup and drink anyway, grimacing at the bitter taste. With the change he buys a pokémon snack bar for Pikachu. “Here, buddy.”

“Did you get anything out of her?”

He turns to find Officer Jenny standing in the doorway. “Nothing especially useful,” he answers with a sigh. “I’ll be back though. I’m not gonna give up with her. I’m sure there’s some way I can get through.”

“Good luck with that,” the woman comments. “I’m not sure that the chances of getting through to someone who has been so straight-facedly deceiving everyone for years are very high.”

“I like a challenge,” he shrugs, his lips forming a tired hint of a smirk. He finishes the coffee and crumples the cup in his hand, tossing it into the trashcan. “Officer, would you let me know if the searches at the gym turn up anything related to Team Rocket?”

“You know I would.” She looks at him. “Would you do something for me too?”

“Like what?”

“Go home and get some rest. You look like you desperately need it.”

“That was the plan,” he sighs. He does need it quite badly, much as it bugs him to admit it. “Thanks for your help, Officer.”

“Anytime.”

He reaches into his pocket as he walks out of the police station and pulls out his pokégear. He holds his breath a bit as he flips it open, only for his heart to drop with a sinking feeling at the empty display. He was hoping to find a message or a missed call from Professor Oak with news about his mother.

“Pika,” Pikachu tries to comfort him, offering a cheek nuzzle. He lets go of his breath and nods.

“Yeah.” He drops the pokégear back into his pocket and takes Charizard’s pokéball from his belt. “Let’s take Officer Jenny’s advice and get ourselves home, huh?”

He touches the release button and the dragon pokémon materializes in front of them, greeting its trainer with a roar. Ash hops onto its back as it readily spreads its wings.

“Back to the base.”

***

She drives back to the hideout at breakneck speed, earning herself a few furious honks as she cuts through the traffic. Her fingers struggle to unbuckle her helmet. She tosses it under the seat and hurries towards the door, her heart a drum in her ears still.

Ash isn’t back yet. She hesitates for the briefest moment; then rushes to one of the shelves and looks through the pieces of tech amassed on it until she finds what she’s looking for. She tries turning it on to check that it works. Then clutches her hands to her chest, guilt twisting her stomach as once again she combs through her brain for another option. Any other.

She’s heard the stories about what happens to those who betray the organization. She knows it’s not a bluff. If she doesn’t deliver Ash within twenty-four hours she won’t see her sisters alive. Possibly not even dead—she’s heard of people gone without a trace left. Without even a body for the traitors to bury.

She drops the device into her pocket with a lump in her throat. Then goes to open her laptop and looks up the coordinates Giovanni gave her. It’s a secluded area north of the city, at the edge of Viridian Forest. The satellite view shows her a clearing and a couple sheds at the end of a dirt road.

The door creaks open behind her. She slams the laptop shut and stands back straight, her stomach crumpling to the size of a fist.

“Hey,” Ash sighs out as he walks in. He stops then, drawing his brow into a frown as his eyes register first her uniform and then the no-doubt distraught look on her face. “…Did something happen?” he asks, after a moment of pause.

Misty presses her lips together. “He has my sisters,” comes tumbling out as soon as she dares to open them, almost unwillingly. Ash’s frown deepens as he looks at her.

“What? Who—?”

Her hands ball into shaky fists. “Who do you think? Giovanni.”

As she says it out loud her breath catches on a snag, and she finds herself gasping for air, her throat suddenly too tight as the reality of it closes on her like a thick blanket. All she tried at all costs to avoid, the one thing that pushed her to get out of bed every day of the past three years even when she would have gladly let herself rot under her sheets. She wants to throw something when Ash rushes through the room and gingerly places a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” he says again. His brown eyes find hers. “Breathe, okay? Then tell me what happened.”

She tries. “He knows everything,” she says. “He knows I’ve been working with you. He saw me in pictures taken by reporters at the Silph gala. And now he’s got my sisters.”

She can see his face slowly fall at the realization that it was him and everything they did together that indirectly led to this. She swallows; then turns away and takes a decision, her heart heavier than a stone.

“I know where they are,” she tells him without meeting his eyes. “I—managed to get in touch with someone I know in the organization. I convinced him to give me a tip.”

She gets out of his grasp and opens the laptop to show him the coordinates. He takes a careful glance at it, then turns back to her, face set with determination.

“Let’s go find them.”

Without a second of hesitation, despite that she can clearly see how thoroughly exhausted he is. Pikachu puts in a “Pika!”, the look in his eyes a mirror of his trainer’s. The realization that Ash trusts her enough to not even question her words just about undoes her, and she almost grabs his arm to stop him and confess everything. Almost.

She takes her gun with her. Then pats her pocket to make sure that what she took is still there and follows him back outside. She watches his profile as he turns his keys in the lock, a choked _I’m sorry_ barely held behind tightly locked lips.

For the last time she tries desperately to think of another way. But there isn’t—it’s this or her sisters dead. She’s only got twenty-four hours. There’s no way she could find them within such a small time frame, and even if by some miracle she were to she knows Giovanni wouldn’t hesitate to have a bullet put in their heads the moment he sensed her trying to trick him. He proved it with how easily he had the gym destroyed.

Ash grabs her by her wrist as she’s about to head towards her motorbike. “I have a faster way to get us there,” he says, reaching for one of the pokéballs at his belt.

His Charizard appears in a flash of red light in front of them. He jumps onto its back, then nods for her to do the same, determination burning in his eyes still.

“Are you positive that’s safe?” she asks, eyeing the flaming orange beast with a tinge of doubt.

“Safer than your driving. Come on, hop on.”

She does. She hesitates a second, guilt tearing her in two; then wraps her arms around him. He turns to glance at her with a brief smirk.

“Hold on tight,” he echoes her, before directing Charizard towards the sky.

***

The buildings of Viridian leave space to the green of the open countryside soon enough. Ash scans the grasslands and the treetops below them as wind blows under Charizard’s wings, looking for the dirt road from the satellite images Misty showed him.

Her arms grasp his waist tightly. _Poor girl,_ Agatha’s mocking voice sneers through his mind, _damned just like you are._ He can’t shake it no matter how hard he tries: in a way he caused this to happen to her. Her sisters would be safe if he’d never convinced her to work with him and dragged her with him to the Silph Co. gala. Just like he caused what happened to his mother.

The muscles of his jaw clench. He can still fix this, at least. It’s not too late.

He spots the road and steers Charizard in that direction. They slow down in a circle over the area: it’s the right place, without a doubt. The rundown sheds match the ones in the images. He sees no one around them, but it’s hard to say for sure with the way the trees thicken around the clearing.

“Pikapi!”

He turns to look to where Pikachu is pointing. The corner of a black van pokes from behind one of the building, hidden almost entirely by the foliage.

He grits his teeth and stalls Charizard, mulling for a moment about the best course of action. “They could be in one of those sheds,” he says to Misty. “I’m gonna land and we’ll approach them on foot, alright?”

A hesitation. Then: “Alright.”

They land behind a patch of trees. He calls Charizard back with a brush of its pokéball and turns to Misty. She’s right behind him, but her eyes turn towards the grass at their feet, not quite meeting his.

He brushes her hand. He can feel her nearly flinch at her touch. “We’ll find them,” he promises, and her face crumples almost imperceptibly like his words hurt her.

They cautiously move towards the clearing. The trees can shield them for a bit still, but to reach the buildings they need to step out in the open. He listens for anyone’s presence, signaling for Misty to wait; then continues forward.

Misty stops him suddenly, grabbing him by his belt to pull him back. “Wait,” she whispers, her breath tense, eyes scanning the line of trees across the clearing. He follows her glance with a frown.

“What?”

A pause. Her cheek works like she’s biting down at it. “I thought I saw something,” she says. She lets go, looking at the trees still. He turns to inspect them again as well: he sees no one, but lets Pikachu jump from his shoulder anyway, preceding them with sparks readying around his cheeks.

They make it to the backside of the shed. He presses his back to the wall and stops to listen again, closely, trying to detect any sign that someone might be held inside. A call for help, a cry of pain; anything. He hears nothing, and after a few moments steps around the corner, guarded still.

A whistle cuts through the air. Pikachu halts with a pained yelp. Then wobbles and falls to the ground.

“Pikachu!”

Ash drops to one knee next to him, his heart jumping into his throat. He turns him over and sees the tranquilizer dart sticking out of his side. Clenching a fist, he scans his surroundings again, trying and failing to find the source.

He stands back up, one hand reaching for Charizard’s pokéball. He freezes when his fingers only finds empty air.

His glance lowers towards his belt. The space where his pokéballs should be is empty. They were there just minutes ago—he used Charizard’s to call it back as they got there. A cold weight settles in his stomach before understanding truly sets in.

He turns to Misty. She stands several steps back, her glance lowered still. One hand held behind her back like she’s concealing something. He remembers her grabbing him by his belt moments ago and feels a knife plunge into his gut.

“Misty…?”

“Don’t move.”

He spins towards the source of the voice. Five men in black uniforms walk out of the trees and into the clearing, surrounding him from all sides. One of them still holds the dart gun he shot Pikachu with; of the other four two wield real ones and two slowly bounce their pokéballs in their hands. He swallows and turns again.

“Misty,” he repeats, every bit of him pushing against the realization that’s inexorably closing down on him. “What is this…?”

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t look at him, either; the brim of her uniform’s beret hides her eyes. The knife stuck in Ash’s belly sinks deeper still as one of the grunts tips his head to her in a nod.

“Well done,” he grins. “I’m sure the boss will be pleased to know you came to your senses in the end.”

Several pieces he’d stupidly thought nothing of suddenly click together, forming a picture too clear to deny and impossible to accept all at once. Her hesitation, her eyes refusing to meet his. The way she almost grimaced at his reassurance as if it wounded her.

Idiot. Oh what an idiot he’s been all along.

The circle closes around him as the grunts step forward. “Put your hands up,” one of them orders. Ash quickly runs through his options, then complies, gritting his teeth. His pulse grows to a steady drum in his ears.

He’s not gonna go down without a fight, even without his pokémon. Giovanni wants him dead, he knows as much already; it’s not like he got much to lose if he gets himself shot now instead of later. Yet he can’t keep himself from turning towards Misty again, expecting something, anything. For the briefest moment her eyes almost turn towards him, and foolish hope fills Ash’s heart. But she catches herself and holds still, her hand squeezed to a shaky fist at her side.

One of the grunts reaches to grab him by his arm. Ash doesn’t hesitate. He aims for his face and strikes, holding back nothing.

He lands a blow and then another. Then one reaches him in the stomach and doubles him over, knocking the wind out of him, and as he bends in two the butt of the dart gun digs itself at the base of his spine and sends stars in front of his eyes. Then all five of them are on him, and his knees hit the ground as his arms are blocked behind his back.

He heaves a breath while one of them ties his wrists together, his eyes again searching for Misty. He can’t see her, the grunts’ black-clad bodies block his view. Then a booth rises up in the air and drops down against his mouth, bouncing his head back and coating his tongue in the metallic taste of blood.

“That’s for trying,” the grunt hisses. Hands grab his arms and pull him back to his feet, dragging him towards the van. He catches a glimpse of Pikachu, still lying motionless on the ground. A gloved hand scoops him up by the scruff of his neck and throws him in a cage.

He turns as the back doors of the van open. Now he sees her, stood where he left her, her head lowered between her shoulders like she can’t stand to watch. He sees his pokéballs clasped into her hand.

“Misty,” he calls her. She turns, unable to stop herself, and for a brief moment their eyes meet, hers filled with tears. Then a fist smacks him in the jaw hard enough to throw him off his feet, and he tumbles inside the van, losing sight of her. A couple kicks collide with his ribs hard enough to leave him gasping for air.

 _Lance wasn’t unlike you,_ Agatha’s voice sneers again through his head as Pikachu’s cage is tossed next to him and the doors of the van slam closed, leaving him in the dark. _Always wanting to help others, even at the expense of himself. And look where that ended him up._

***

It takes Misty every ounce of her willpower not to fold on herself and sob as she watches the van doors close behind him.

One of the Rockets locks them and then turns to her. “Thanks for doing your part,” he says, tipping his beret sarcastically. Misty looks at him.

“My sisters,” she presses. She can feel her tears about to spill and forces herself not to blink, not until they’ll be gone. “I did what I was supposed to do. Where are they?”

“The boss will get in touch with you,” he leaves her with as he starts to turn to join the others. Misty shakes her head, stepping after him.

“When?”

He shrugs. “I’m not his secretary. No idea.”

With that he turns to board the van, shutting the door behind himself. The engine coughs and sputters, then starts. Powerless, Misty watches the vehicle maneuver out of the clearing and speed down the dirt road until it disappears from her sight. Only then she presses her hand over her mouth and smothers a few sobs against her palm, each feeling like it’s ripping her in half.

She wiper her arm over her eyes. Her glance lowers on Ash’s pokéballs, still in her hand; and her stomach threatens to turn over. She clutches them for a few moments and closes her eyes, trying to convey a desperate hope into them as if it could reach him somehow, then drops them into her pocket with the pokégear and the keys she slipped from him while they were flying and reaches for her own pokégear. She stares at the empty display like she could will a call to appear.

Wind rustles the trees around the clearing. Alone she stands at the center of it, the device quiet in her hand. She sniffles, then walks to a tree stump and sits, looking at the screen still.

 _Please, please let this work._ She shuts her eyes again for a moment, hoping with every last bit of herself. _Let him still have time._

Her prayer is only met with silence. She wipes her eyes one more time and looks back to the pokégear, waiting.

***

The van stops after maybe twenty minutes, though he’s not sure—it’s hard to tell, stuck in the dark with only the furious beating of his heart to mark the passing of time.

“Pikachu,” he tries whispering, but the pokémon is still under the effect of the tranquilizer and his voice doesn’t reach him this time either. He hears the engine sputter off, then the doors open and close. He swallows, his throat dry, and pulls himself to his knees staring at the thin sliver of light filtering between the back doors.

Footsteps. Then the click of the latch and the doors open, blinding him for a second as the sudden light pierces his eyes. Two of the grunts reach into the back of the van and grab him by his arms, dragging him back to his feet, and he holds back a groan as pain flares back up in his bruised ribs.

They’re inside a hangar, or warehouse, or something similar—he makes out gray concrete walls and a slice of sky beyond a shutter door. There’s a chair in the middle of the floor and they drag him to it and force him to sit. Ash’s attempt to struggle free fall short: he’s too tired. Even with the adrenaline running through his veins he can’t put up enough of a fight.

He cranes his neck back towards the van while they tie his wrists to the chair. He can see a corner of Pikachu’s cage. _At least spare him,_ he begs in his mind through gritted teeth. _Please. At least leave him out of it._

One of the grunts stands in front of him, slowly cracking his knuckles. His split lip tells him it’s the one he managed to hit.

“The boss wants you alive a little longer,” he informs him. “Said he wants a word with you in person before we dump your body in some ditch. However,” his lips pull into a grin, showing crooked teeth “he didn’t specify you need to be in one piece.”

Ash’s stomach crumples. And yet, he realizes with surprise as he sees the five grinning faces get closer, he doesn’t care as much as he should. Everything from his mother to Agatha to Misty standing still as he got dragged away flashes through his mind, leaving him feeling so thoroughly emptied that the thought of what awaits him barely makes a difference.

“Let Pikachu go,” he tries still. “It’s me Giovanni really wants dead, isn’t it? Leave him—”

A fist slams into the side of his face, cutting him off and filling his mouth with blood again.

***

It’s almost a full hour before the pokégear goes off in her hand. Every second of it feels like it’s plunging into her flesh, deeper and deeper.

Her breath catches at the buzzing sound. She scrambles to answer and bring the device to her ear, but only manages to part her lips without sound, her throat too tight to squeeze a word out.

“I’ve been informed that you’ve successfully completed your task,” Giovanni’s voice says into her ear. She feels a fit of revulsion at it, twisting her stomach like a wet rag. “It wasn’t that hard, now, was it? All that was needed was a touch of extra motivation.”

“Where are my sisters?” she growls. The plastic of the pokégear crinkles in her white-knuckled grasp. “I did my part. Now do yours.”

“I am a man of my word,” he says. “I’ll send you some coordinates once this conversation is over. You’ll find your sisters there unharmed. As for you, well… you’ll understand I can’t allow your misconduct to go unpunished. We’ll have to make sure the lesson sticks—I cannot have a traitor in my ranks. But since you made the right choice in the end I am willing to take you back, once you’ve atoned. I am a magnanimous man, after all.”

Her stomach turns again at the memory of similar words spoken by the drill sergeant after her failures. “What’s going to happen to Ash?” she can’t stop herself from asking.

“ _Ash,_ ” he repeats, in a tone between disgust and mockery. His voice then regains its surgical calm: “The target is currently in the organization’s custody. I intend to have a word with him, then someone else will finish your job, since you couldn’t. Refer to him in a way that implies closeness again and you’ll be the one to dispose of his body. Is that understood?”

So he’s still alive at least. “Yes, sir,” she answers. And, though it feels like broken glass in her mouth: “Thank you, sir.”

“I expect to see you tomorrow,” he tells her. “Matori will forward you the address.”

With that he hangs up, leaving her in the silence of the clearing again. She brings the pokégear in front of her eyes and stares at the screen holding her breath. Ten seconds. Twenty.

_1 new message_

She opens it with her heart in her throat. For a moment she can only stare at the coordinates, frozen between the wave of relief trying to wash over her and the distrust keeping her alert.

She swallows. Then reaches into her pocket for Ash’s pokégear, her own still in her other hand. She opens it and flips through the recent calls.

Her thumb hesitates on the call button for the briefest second. Then presses it.

“Officer Jenny,” comes the timely answer. Misty takes a breath.

“Officer.” She tries to keep her voice from shaking. “I’m calling on behalf of Ash. Agent K,” she adds, remembering the name she heard him use on the phone shortly after she woke up in his hideout. “I have important information about the missing Cerulean City gym leaders. I know where they’re being kept.”

There’s a pause at the other end of the line. “I need you to identify yourself,” the policewoman says then. Misty shakes her head.

“I can’t. Officer, please, I need you to listen to me. I’m about to read you some coordinates. I need you to send a squad there. Then I need you to call me back once my—once the gym leaders are safe. Please, if you trust Ash—please trust me.”

A second of silence again. “Read me the coordinates.”

Misty breathes out in a silent _thank you_ and complies. “Roger, let me just pass this on to the Cerulean police,” Officer Jenny says. She shakes her head again, urgent.

“No—it needs to be your department. It needs to be someone Ash trusts.”

“That’s going to take longer,” the policewoman retorts, perplexed. Misty’s eyes sting.

“I know. But it has to be you.”

Silence. “I’ll have a flying squad dispatched in a minute. Hold on,” she says. She’s put on hold for a few moments; then she’s back. “Can you let me speak to Ash?”

She sinks her teeth into her lip. “I can’t,” she says again. “Officer—I need you to keep them under surveillance after they’re found. Someone will try to hurt them again soon. And I _need_ you to let me know as soon as they’re safe. Ash’s life depends on this too. I can’t explain right now, but I’m sure he will.”

 _After he turns me in,_ she adds only to herself. She hangs up before the policewoman has a chance to question her further or attempt to trace the call.

The minutes pile up interminably. _Come on_ , she thinks, and she realizes she’s whispering it to herself over and over as she paces around the tree stump. The pokégear remains silent in her hand. She stares at the screen, frustrated tears pushing at the back of her eyes.

Half an hour goes by. Then another.

_Come on. Please. I don’t know how long he’s got left._

The pokégear buzzes. She brings it to her ear with baited breath, her heart about to jump out of her chest.

“Officer—”

“All three Cerulean City gym leaders have been found at the coordinates you gave.”

Her heart swells. “Are they… alright? Were they hurt?”

“They were unharmed. Scared, but physically alright.”

Misty closes her eyes and lets the wave of relief finally crash over her, her knees almost going out from under her. Only for a moment; she doesn’t have time for more. “Keep them protected. Don’t lose sight of them. Someone _will_ try to hurt them again.”

At the other end there’s another brief silence. “What happened to Ash?” Officer Jenny inquires then.

“I can’t explain,” she tells her one more time. “Thank you, Officer.”

She hangs up again without giving her the time to react. She drops the pokégear in her pocket and pulls out Ash’s pokéballs. She looks at them in hesitation a few seconds, her stomach in a twist, then breathes in and touches her thumb to one of the release buttons.

Charizard takes shape in front of her. Its eyes look around for its trainer, then focus on her and her Team Rocket uniform and its pupils contract into slits. Its teeth bare in a low growl. Misty shows it her palms, her heartbeat growing to a drum.

“Charizard—listen, please. I’m not going to harm you. I need your help.”

The pokémon blows smoke from its nostrils. Flames flicker between its jaws as it growls louder, and Misty flinches, shrinking into her shoulders; but doesn’t step back nor take her eyes away from the creature’s.

“Please. I’m—” She stops, a lump in her throat. She forces it down and continues: “I’m—a friend of Ash. I need your help to rescue him and Pikachu.”

They stall, the pokémon’s lizard eyes studying her, sparks of fire dancing around its exposed teeth with each of its breaths. Then slowly its posture relaxes. It lowers its head and guardedly offers its snout to her. Misty takes a shaky breath and stretches one hand towards it, laying it gently against its scaly skin. Its nostrils twitch as it sniffs at her.

“Zard,” the pokémon huffs. It still looks at her warily, but bows down and exposes its back. She breathes out in gratitude and climbs onto it.

“Thank you. I need you to take me back to Ash’s hideout now.”

Charizard spreads it wings. She holds tightly onto its neck, her breath snagged from her lungs as they soar towards the sky.

Her knees wobble slightly as they land. “Wait for me here, okay?” she tells Charizard, her voice a bit winded, and waits for it to lower its head in a nod before finding Ash’s keys in her pocket and scrambling to open the door.

She rushes through the room to find his tablet. For a moment she can’t remember the password, and her insides twist in a panicked grip as she searches through her brain; relief hits her as it comes back to her. _Pikachu_ _#_ _25_. She types it with her fingers shaking in impatience.

_Please let this work. Please. Please._

The tracking device she slipped into Ash’s pocket sends its signal, marking his position on a map. He seems to be at the outskirts of Viridian, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes from the clearing. The pulsating green dot doesn’t seem to be moving. She watches it hoping it won’t lead her to a discarded tracker or a dead body.

She burns the location into her mind, then hurries back outside. Charizard is waiting for her. She locks the door, then hops back onto it.

“Okay. I know where they are.”

She turns her face towards the sky as the pokémon spreads its wings again, determination burning in her heart brighter than Charizard’s flame. “Let’s go save Ash.”

***

Bloody spit stains the concrete floor. Ash’s vision swims in and out of darkness, catching glimpses of grinning faces and bloodied gloves. He tries to breathe and pain spikes through him again, nearly plunging him into black.

“I’d say that’s enough,” comes one of the voices. Far away, it seems. “The boss won’t be happy if he’s a vegetable by the time he gets here.”

Ash’s head lolls forward. A hand clasps the hair at the base of his neck and snags it back up.

“Nah, I think I’m not quite done yet,” another voice retorts; and a set of knuckles collides with his already throbbing nose. He coughs as blood slides down the back of his throat.

“ _Pikapi!_ ”

He can’t see him, but he can hear him yell his name over and over again since the effect of the tranquilizer wore off. One of the grunts breathes out loudly in annoyance.

“Someone put another dart in that noisy rat.”

“Don’t you dare,” Ash manages to sputter. He raises his voice, somehow, despite that every breath rips through him in a surge of blinding pain: “Pikachu—it’s okay. I’ll be okay. Please just—”

Another blow shuts him up. His head bounces against his shoulders as Pikachu’s desperate screams fill his ears, and black shoots through his vision and tries to swallow him whole. He digs his nails into the last shreds of consciousness, trying desperately to hang onto them as they slip away.

There’s a roar. Blinking, Ash turns his face towards the rectangle of sky, his eyes struggling to make sense of the orange form rapidly growing against the blue.

Charizard. And on top of it Misty, hair spilled out of the uniform’s beret and flying behind her head like a flame.

His heart gives a flutter, as if coming out of a slumber. The faintest trace of a smile pulls at his lips as he slips into the dark.

***

“That way, Charizard, quick!”

Charizard dives towards the entrance of the hangar, coming close to unsaddling her in its frenzied swoop. She grits her teeth and holds on tighter. She can see the five Rockets, their heads turning towards them as Charizard’s jaws open in a roar. And behind them—

“Ash!”

He doesn’t hear her—he’s slumped onto the chair he’s tied to, face red with blood. She doesn’t have the time to take a closer look at him: Charizard pulls its head back and a ball of fire forms in its wide open mouth to shoot at the grunts. The group dives for cover as the attack scorches the concrete floor; and Misty ducks her head between her shoulders as they fly straight into the hangar, narrowly avoiding the shutter door.

She doesn’t even need to give Charizard a command. Enraged at the sight of its trainer’s state, the dragon swoops around the closed space spitting fire towards the five men, seemingly having forgotten all about her as she holds on for dear life. One is hit by the brunt of a blast and collapses to the floor, smoke rising in wisp from his burnt clothes; another reaches for the dart gun only to have it half-melted in his hand.

She manages to hop off as Charizard dives closer to the floor and pulls her gun out of the holster to aim it at the Rocket closer to Ash. “Stay the hell away from him.”

“The hell’s gotten into your head?” the man questions. She sees him reach for one of his pokéballs and this time she doesn’t hesitate.

The Rocket cries out in pain as he clasps his bloodied hand. “Are you fucking crazy?!” he growls, and then Charizard bowls into him, slamming him into the wall and knocking him out cold.

Three of them left. One is promptly taken care of by another of Charizard’s flamethrowers. She spins on her heels and fires at the fourth, catching him in the back of a leg as he attempted to get away.

She turns. The last Rocket’s drawn his gun too, and they face each other, everything pausing for a second in the space between their barrels.

“You’re dead for this, you know that?” he tells her.

Misty swallows. “Maybe,” she answers. “But so are you.”

Her last syllable is swallowed by Charizard’s roar as it flies past her, nearly knocking her down too in the gust raised by its wings. The man manages to pull the trigger; but his glance and his aim are snagged by the beast diving at full speed towards him.

She clutches her shoulder with a pained yelp as a burning trail scrapes across it. Then Charizard crashes into him, a whirlwind of fire and bared teeth.

The hangar falls into silence as the man’s scream is abruptly cut off, broken only by Pikachu’s cries and the moans of the grunt she shot in the leg. Careful, she takes her hand off her shoulder to check it: the bullet’s done little more than graze her skin. She judges that it doesn’t need attention and turns, her breath held in her chest.

Ash is still lying motionless on the chair, his head hanging from his neck. She slips the gun back into the holster. Then covers the distance between them, her steps hastening as she gets closer.

“Hey,” she whispers crouching in front of him. Charizard lands at her side, looking at its trainer with alarm. “Can you hear me? Please—”

She takes his face in her hands and gently lifts it towards her. The whole left side is bruised and swollen, from his eye to the side of his mouth. There’s blood caked around his nostrils and down his chin. A knot in her belly, she brushes his hair back from his sweaty forehead and softly slaps his less injured cheek, trying to rouse him.

“Hey,” she whispers again. His name catches in her throat: she’s never used it yet, not while speaking to him directly. “Come on. Please. Ash.”

His brow twitches slightly. He draws a pained breath and his eyelids open by a crack—the left only barely, too weighed by the swelling. His dazed eyes look at her.

Misty can feel her lips open in a smile as relief crashes into her. He hates her, she’s sure, but he’s alive and for the briefest moment she leans her forehead into his, breathing out in a sob. She draws back then and looks at him.

“Can you hear me?” she asks again. He manages a nod. “Good. Hold on, I’ll untie you now.”

She walks around the chair and works her fingers against the tight knots. It takes her a ripped fingernail and a few curses. He nearly slumps forward as his arms fall free, catching himself with a groan.

He spits bloodied spit at his feet and presses a hand to his ribs. Then his eyes run towards the black van parked near them and he clenches his teeth and tries to stand.

His legs buckle under him. Just in time she manages to spring back to her feet and catch him before he slams his face into the concrete. He falls against her, his dead weight almost toppling her backwards, and smothers a pained grunt into her shoulder. She expects him to push her away as soon as he can get himself back to his feet, but instead his arms wrap around her, holding tightly onto her in something that resembles a hug.

She stands frozen, her insides in a twist. Wondering if she should check his head for a concussion, she leads him back to the chair and gently pushes him to sit. She keeps her hands on his shoulders to hold him.

“I’ll get Pikachu. Take a breath, okay? Just rest for a moment.”

He nods, groaning an _okay._ She holds his shoulder a second longer, then follows Pikachu’s cries to the back of the van: she finds him in a cage, exhausted from throwing himself at the bars. The door won’t give when she tries to tug at it, and she turns and scans her surroundings, biting her lip. She jumps back out of the van and marches to the one still conscious grunt, the one she shot in the back of the leg.

“The keys to Pikachu’s cage,” she orders. When she doesn’t get an answer she slams her foot down on the bullet wound, tearing a scream out of him.

“My belt,” he spits through his teeth. She snags them and rushes back to the van.

Pikachu bares his teeth as her as she frees him, sparks crackling from his cheeks in distrust. He looks at her with eyes full of guarded hurt; then rushes to his trainer, who in the meantime’s stubbornly managed to stand holding onto Charizard’s neck. He lets Pikachu climb into his free arm even if it costs him a grimace or several.

“Ow—careful, buddy— _ow,_ yeah, I’m happy to see you too.”

Misty looks at them. Hers and Ash’s eyes meet, and for a moment they look at each other across the hangar, the space between them dense with everything she wants to say but doesn’t dare to. I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice. Say a word and I’ll leave and you’ll never have to see my face again.

She swallows, looking at the blood on his face and his legs still trying to fold under his weight. “Let me take you home,” she says instead.

She has to be the one to lead Charizard on the way back—Ash slumps against her, barely able to sit up straight. She holds one hand over his arms, worried he might pass out and fall.

They make it, somehow. She helps him off Charizard, then calls the pokémon back into its pokéball and ducks under his arm to let him lean on her as they walk inside. Neither of them speaks as she helps him hobble towards the bed. Pikachu follows them closely, hopping onto the mattress after him.

Ash’s hand runs back to his ribs. “There should be—some dry ice in the first aid kit on the shelf,” he says, exhaustion weighing down every word. “Could you get it for me?”

She does. She walks to the sink then and takes off the uniform’s gloves, wets a towel under warm water and crouches in front of him while he sticks the dry ice packet under his shirt. She washes the blood off his face, trying not to hurt him even more than she already has. “Can I?” she asks then, bending down closer to take a look at the bruises.

He nods. As gently as possible, she presses her fingers along his cheekbone and jaw, stopping every time he flinches. “I don’t think anything’s broken. Just bruised,” she tells him. Somehow he manages to crack a strained grin while she moves onto the bridge of his nose.

“Well I guess there was some truth to all the times I got told I’ve got a thick skull.”

She ignores him. “Where else does it hurt?”

She bows to lift the hem of his shirt. There’s bruises on his stomach and the left side of his ribs, but it’s the right that looks especially bad, a constellation of deep dark purple all the way down from his collarbone to his waist. He breathes in sharply as soon as she brushes it, hardly managing to hold back a groan. She feels his ribs as carefully as he can, a lump in her throat; then lays her open palm against his skin. She can feel the rush of his heart.

“Take a deep breath.”

He does, flinching again as his ribcage expands. “Just one more time,” she instructs, moving her hand further down, then lets his shirt fall. She purses her lips with her insides squeezed into a twist.

“I think you have a couple broken ribs. We’d better get you to the hospital.”

“Nah, no need,” he sighs out. She shakes her head.

“You could have a punctured lung or something.”

“I think I’d have noticed by now.”

She decides not to press further. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I don’t think.” His eyes find the bloodied rip in her uniform. “Your shoulder?”

“It’s only a scratch.”

They fall into a silence. He lifts the ice back to his ribs and breathes slowly, in and out. After a bit his eyes turn towards her, the left one still half closed but both alert and hurt.

“Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?”

Misty presses her lips together. She nods and sits on the mattress, the farthest possible from him, but the words refuse to come out. Nothing feels like it could possibly justify what she did.

“Did Giovanni really take your sisters?” he asks. She turns to him.

“Yes,” she answers. “That part wasn’t a lie. He found out that I’ve been working with you. He found the microphone you put in his office and saw pictures taken of us at the gala. And he gave me an ultimatum while you were talking to Agatha. I had twenty-four hours to get you to the clearing or my sisters would die.” She looks at the floor, biting down on the inside of her cheek. “Our gym is gone. He blew it up like it was nothing.”

Saying it out loud feels like cutting herself open, and she feels tears rise to her eyes and forcefully pushes them back. He’s silent for a bit, a frown creasing his brow as he processes the information.

“Were you always planning to come and get me?” he asks.

“Check your pocket.”

He does. His eyebrows shoot up slightly as he finds the tracker. He holds it in his palm a moment, then turns back to her.

“When did you do this?”

“While we were on Charizard. I took these too.”

She finds his pokégear and his keys in her pocket. She lays them in the space between them, then pulls out his pokéballs as well. He looks at the small pile and shakes his head.

“I didn’t even notice.”

“I steal stuff for a living, if you forgot.”

Neither adds anything for a bit. “After they took you—” she says at last, her voice faltering a little “Giovanni gave me the coordinates of where he took my sisters. I used your pokégear to call Officer Jenny and tell her to look for them there. I had to know they were safe before I could come and get you.”

Her voice cracks at last. She wants to add an _I’m sorry_ , but it feels like it wouldn’t even begin to mend his hurt. He says nothing, and she looks at her feet, tears trapped between her eyelashes.

He drops the tracker aside. “You know,” he tells her “you could have been honest with me. I’d have gone along with the plan.”

Hearing it tears her to pieces. She can’t say anything, and he breathes out in a sigh as her nails dig into the sheet. “I could have had a plan B to avoid getting the shit beaten out of me maybe.”

She unsuccessfully tries to swallow down the lump in her throat. “You can turn me in,” she tells him. “I won’t fight.”

“I don’t want to turn you in.”

She lifts her head to him. For a moment she looks at him, the puzzling, glaring absurdity of him, too kind-hearted for his own good, glowing too bright and too optimistic and too willing to give people a chance to exist in a world like theirs and be still alive and unchanged. Then shakes her head and stands.

“I’m leaving then.”

He frowns. “To where?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Giovanni said he’d take me back when he thought I’d turned you in, but now he sure as hell won’t. I guess I’ll just… disappear, I can do that now. I’ve got nothing else to lose anyway. The gym is gone and my sisters are in the police’s protection. There’s nothing else I can do for them now.”

There’s something like relief in saying that, though realizing it only makes the weight of her guilt even more unbearable. He lets her walk almost to the door before he says: “You don’t have to.”

Misty turns back to look at him. “Are you kidding? I can’t stay after what I did to you. It’s a miracle you’re even alive! They could have killed you on the spot for all I knew.”

“Well yeah, but they didn’t.” He gives a shrug, flinching in pain as the small movement is enough to rattle down to his broken ribs. She shakes her head again.

“How can you still want me here?” She’s furious all of a sudden. She’d walk straight back to the bed and shake that stupidly forgiving disposition out of him if she wasn’t sure she’d hurt him. “How are you not angry, or hurt, even after this?!”

“I am.” He says it calmly, looking straight at her. “But it hurts me a lot more than you want to take the easy way out and leave now instead of making up for it.”

“How could I possibly make up for it?”

“Help me.” He looks at her pleadingly and she sees clearly how much the last couple days have broken him down. “Help me make this all worth it.”

She turns away though. “I can’t help you. I can’t keep being around you.”

“Because you hurt me or because you don’t want to have to face the consequences of it?”

That stings. She digs her nails into her palm, unable to come up with a remark.

“You said there’s nothing else you can do for your sisters,” he says. “You know that’s a lie. You could help me make it so that they don’t have to spend the rest of their life hiding under fake identities in some witness protection program. Give them the chance to rebuild what can be saved of the gym and _live_. Instead you’re choosing to hide because you feel bad.”

Tears burn in her eyes again. She stares at the floor, a sob trapped in her chest: he is right, deep down she knows; she’s letting cowardice drive her actions because she can’t stand to look at his face and see the physical reminder of what she did. He lets a few moments pass.

“What do you want?” he asks then. “Forget how you feel about what you did to me for a second. What do you want? Do you really want to hide forever? Never see your sisters again, let Giovanni keep getting away with destroying people’s lives and wash your hands of it?”

“I—” She turns. A flame flares up in her heart, sudden. “I want him to pay. For what he did to the gym and my sisters. To you.” She stumbles, then finally manages to the words out of herself, stuck deep down like a rusty nail. “And to me.”

Ash looks at her. Despite everything she sees that spark of determination burn in his eyes, like a challenge faced head on.

“Then stay. And help me make it happen.”

She blinks and tears spill at last. “How can you possibly still want me around?”

He shrugs again, more carefully this time. “You said Giovanni would have taken you back. You had already saved your sisters, you had the chance to go back to working for Team Rocket and be forgiven. But instead you chose to throw it away and condemn yourself to save my life. Again.”

“Yeah, after I almost ended it.”

“Almost,” he remarks. “Listen—”

He holds onto the bedframe and tries to stand. He put too much trust in his legs, though, and nearly tumbles straight to the floor, almost dragging the nightstand down with himself.

“Pikapi!” Pikachu cries out, jumping up in alarm. Misty curses and hurries to help him back onto the bed.

“What were you trying to do?!”

“I miscalculated,” he groans. His eyes find hers, hopeful. “So are you staying, then?”

She drops next to him with a sigh. She racks her brain for a valid remark, almost wanting to find one to throw in his face to scream _see? I’m right, I should be leaving._ She ends up saying nothing. He doesn’t either, and for a bit they’re both silent, sitting closer now.

“How did you get Charizard to listen to you?” he wonders eventually, turning to her with a curious glance. His brow folds in a slight frown. “He wouldn’t let just anyone fly on his back without me.”

Misty looks at the floor, sinking her teeth into her lip. It costs her a bit to admit it. “I told it I was your friend.”

A pause. “So we are?” he asks then. “Friends?”

Her eyes dart to him in disbelief. “You can’t possibly still want that.”

He giver another careful shrugs. “Well, it’ll take work. But sometimes friendship does,” he says. He studies her. She can see the hurt in his eyes still, something that goes much deeper than the bruises and the swelling. But she can see openness, too. Like a hand tentatively outstretched, both in an offer and a plea.

_Help me. Help me make this all worth it._

She finds herself reaching back as the images of the gym in ruins float back up to the surface of her mind, tearing her to pieces all over again. She thinks of everything she and her sisters sacrificed to keep it. The last three years of her life.

_Help me make this all worth it._

They sit in silence. In a way it feels as though they’ve gone back to standing in front of each other across the makeshift battlefield on the roof, a rift of hurt between them. And yet at the same time they’re together at the center of it, back to back as Giovanni’s shadow looms closer from every side, wounded, still standing.

_Meet me on the battlefield  
_ _even on the darkest night  
_ _I will be your sword and shield, your camouflage  
_ _and you will be mine_

_Echoes of the shots ring out_  
_we may be the first to fall  
_ _everything could stay the same or we could change it all_

_(SVRCINA - Battlefield)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this is a good moment to mention that the title of this story comes in fact from the song "Battlefield" by SVRCINA I quoted here. I couldn't until now because it was spoiler-y for the last line of this chapter :P  
> Anyway, I picked it because I liked that the title "Battlefield" by itself can be taken to mean that the battle is between Ash and Misty, but the full song is actually about being on the battlefield together.
> 
> I got possessed by the spirit of a very fast writer and wrote basically one half of this chapter in a day. The next one is definitely going to take longer - this chapter sort of wraps up the first half (give or take) of the story, now I need to properly lay out the planning for the next! I was going to sit on this one for a bit before posting it so the wait afterwards would be shorter but I have no patience. Hopefully it won't be *too* long, anyway - I do have a pretty clear idea of where the story is going, I just need to straighten out some aspects. If this story was a TV show I guess I'd call this the midseason finale.


End file.
